I think I’ve discovered it - octopus - low carb even with a dusting of flour and spicy sauces and low protein as well so no damn gluconeogenesis to deal with - bonus for me I could eat the stuff all day - and they serve stevia margaritas as well here everywhere
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Looks delicious! I love good octopus. 
Would that just make it relatively low calorie? I can’t imagine there’s much fat in octopus either? Seems like would be a good light meal but perhaps not that filling.
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i’ve been eating octopus for years now. i get it whenever i eat japanese food. i love love love it! i do have to bolus for the protein but i don’t think that there are any carbs in it to account for. i prefer it with either a brushing of lemon or a little soy sauce with wasabi mustard for spice.
in fact, i will be eating it this coming saturday and had it last saturday as well. (and my husband loves it too 
)
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What a great thought, @Robellengold ! You are stimulating my cooking creativity here!
The trick would be to figure out a replacement for flour so you can eat deep fried calamari - but not sure any of the flour substitutes out there would work very well !
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A local chef liked to dust the calamari with panko and then grill it on a hibachi. So delicious!
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I have never fried with almond flour, but if it behaves well, it would be very low carb. It might even add some interesting flavor. I would think, however, that you would only want a short fry. Does Octopus work al dente?
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This looks great, @daisymae. I will have to try that.
Great idea. I was thinking of grated cheese too. Maybe also roughly ground nuts?
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I hadn’t thought of cheese. That would probably work in a pan fry.
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Almond flour might have too high a fat content. Maybe chickpea flour?
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as delicious as that sounds, octopus is not calamari; calamari is made from squid.
but squid is one of my favorites as well, whether it is fried or raw (japanese style).
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My wife would be aghast (she is a trained marine biologist), but I don’t see much difference in them when they hit the dinner plate, they are both tasty.
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i don’t know which i even prefer; they are both so yummy 
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I really like them both, assuming they are cooked well (poorly made, they are horrible and rubbery). I do have a number of friends though who generally eat meat but who won’t eat octopus because of how smart they are, which I kind of get although I still eat them. They are fascinatingly intelligent, especially for a mollusk, but I’m not sure I feel worse about eating one than I would, say, a pig, and I still eat pork, so…
Here in Rhode Island, calamari is really popular (we get great local squid, as well as really awesome local seafood in general), and the typical way you find it is fried and served with hot peppers. So good. Worth the insulin!
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calamari is very popular in NYC, but if you want just the fish, you can only find it in the japanese restaurants where they serve it raw. i am not big on greesy foods, so i avoid the calamari (my husband loves it so much, though, that i will nibble off of his plate). but i do love both of them raw with the japanese hot mustard.
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Mmm, sounds good! Yeah, hard to beat Japanese if you want to really focus on the seafood itself. Some places here also do calamari grilled or sautéed which is nice. One Italian place I like does a chilled (but cooked) calamari salad with the hot peppers as well as other pickled and marinated veggies, and a funky/modern asian place I love puts in their riff on dan dan noodles and often in other dishes.
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I have a strong suspicion that almond flour would burn, it’s very finicky about temperature. I have panfried chicken breaded in it and it scorched easily.
I have a feeling that either cornstarch, tapioca starch, potato starch, or white rice flour would be the best choice. Probably, a combination of a few of those, with maybe a binder like egg white.
I found a restaurant in our town that does gluten-free Chinese food (I assume there would be a lot of cross-contamination if you were celiac). Their breaded and fried items use a cornstarch batter.
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@TravelingOn, you’re pretty spot on. Almond flour doesn’t fry well, burning easily and it just doesn’t adhere well because the fat content makes it too “wet.” I’ve tried baking it, too, and same issue - the breading just slides right off.
While it isn’t really low carb, I use cornstarch for the chicken I fry at home for Chinese food meals - it requires very little to add crispiness, so at ~7g/T, if I use just 1/4 cup for an entire batch of chicken (probably 1.5lbs cut into smallish chunks), the end product doesn’t have too many carbs. Of course, it’s more of a thin crispy breading that’s pan fried, not the thick deep fried goodness of, say, General Tso’s chicken (one of my personal favs). The local Chinese restaurant that does gf (celiac safe) breaded chicken uses rice flour, I believe (and was responsible for my first venture to the 200s ).
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@TravelingOn, @Pianoplayer7008, this is GREAT info, thank you!
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