Cooking an Octopus

As Mr. Cream described in the last post, we had a fabulous tapas dinner last Saturday night. Lest you think that I opened the nearest tin of octopus for my pulpo gallego (which by the way would be totally legit), I wanted to share this picture of my 7+ lb. monster and let you in on a couple of cooking tips.

As you know, octopus can be tough and chewy, but if cooked properly it is delicious. Interestingly I always thought that the chewiness came from overcooking, but in fact, it is undercooking.

The trick is dipping it in boiling water to bring it up to temp before submersing it for a 2 hour boil. Using a frozen octopus also helps tenderize it. I used a large octopus so I went ahead and cut off the head and discarded - you can leave the head, but remove the eyes and mouth.

Get a huge pot of salted, boiling water - really boiling. Dip the octopus in the water for about 15 seconds (use tongs or a BBQ fork and be careful of the steam). Pull it out and bring the water back to a boil and then dip again. Repeat this 3-4 times or until when you return the octopus to the pot the water continues to boil. Submerge in the pot and boil slowly for 1.5 - 2 hours. You can then remove it from the pot, cut into pieces and season as desired.

Or, you can just open a tin.