I once had this octopus sashimi that was still alive, and the suckers applied a gentle suction on your tongue that was rather disconcerting. It was a delicacy, and I probably wouldn’t have had it unless a client was the one ordering dinner. But that was a long time ago. And I haven’t had it since. So on a recent visit to Banri, my go-to Japanese restaurant in Cebu, when the server suggested I have some of their octopus special, I hesitated until I spied the plate at the next table that indicated it had been poached first. We ordered a plate of tuna sashimi and one “tako” or octopus. The octopus was SUPERB, a wonderful, slightly chewy texture, and the briney flavor of the sea, with a hint of sweetness at the same time. Really good stuff. So good, we immediately ordered another portion.

I am not sure if this technically qualifies as sashimi, as it isn’t raw anymore, but it was good, whatever you called it. Pricey at PHP280 or so for just a few pieces (the equivalent of half a kilo of lechon!), but worth it. I suppose several Japanese restaurants have this on offer, and you can see the entire tentacle in their chilled display cases, but somehow they don’t usually look as fresh as this batch seemed to be. I wonder if there is some secret to making this (or is it a specific species of octopi?) or if I can just poach some fresh octopus myself… :)

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Don’t they look utterly stunning? I always thought so, and it is this aspect that has always intrigued me about baby octopus. Every time I would leaf through a food magazine (Australian ones in particular are fond of this ingredient) or cookbook with a photo or recipe for baby octopus, I would stop and read it. Looks were definitely the hook, taste and texture followed… So after I managed to purchase 2 kilos of baby octopus at the Carbon market in Cebu a few days ago, I decided to try and make two dishes, and this grilled baby octopus salad with tomatoes was the first dish…

First the baby octopodes were cleaned and because I was concerned that direct grilling would result in tough meat, I simmered the octopuses in water with some lemon juice bay leaves, peppercorns and salt for some 25-30 minutes until tender and drained them and discarded the herbs/spices. Next, I sprinkled the octopi with olive oil and salt and pepper and grilled them over hot coals for a few minutes just to crisp up their tentacle tips and add a smokey flavor and aroma.

I tossed the grilled octopi with some small ripe native tomatoes dressed with a touch of red wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper and served this as photographed. They were delicious, but I have to say, a bit tougher than I thought they should be. I don’t know if I simmered them for too little time or too much time. At any any rate, I understand why most recipes call for chopping the octopus into smaller pieces but I was after looks and visuals with the whole mini beasts curling their tentacles. They tasted great, just a bit chewier than they should have been.

If I had some baby arugula that would have taken this dish up a notch. But experiment and learn… I hope I find more baby octopi in local markets in the months ahead so I can try other recipes as well. Keep in mind this trick that Mario Batali swears by… float a traditional wine cork in the liquid that you simmer the octopodes in and it should ensure that they are cooked to tender perfection. What that is, even Mario doesn’t know… :)

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While browsing through a Mario Batali cookbook recently, I noticed two recipes for baby octopuses and I was intrigued by his suggestion that the inclusion of a cork in the boiling liquid was a sure-fire way to achieve tender octopodes. Fast forward 3 days later, and while cruising the seafood section of the Carbon market in Cebu, I came upon this bounty of baby octopi/octopuses/octopodes (yes, all three are correct). I was amused and smiled at the coincidence, so I decided to buy some…

In the 5+ years that I have maintained this blog, I don’t think I have come across this many baby octopodes at one vendor. I am not sure if baby octopi swim in schools somehow and these were caught in one net, or if they are collected from shallow waters from under rocks and corals. Marketman aside… I was so curious if eating these babies was evil, so I found this link which is ABSOLUTELY worth the read. I learned a LOT in 2 minutes. How to distinguish a male from a female. How the female holes up under rocks to lay with eggs and babies for months, and dies after it gives birth. That the average litter size of that species of octopus is 70,000(!) babies that are perfectly beautiful when born. And that out of all of those, only 2 will likely survive to adulthood, as some 69,998 of them will be munched on by fish, other sea critters and some by humans…

AT PHP90 a kilo, I thought these were a steal. And since I had never cooked them before, I decided to buy two kilos to experiment with. And the lady vendor was kind enough to pick through all the contents of her blue plastic pail to get all the smallest octopodes for me. I do have a couple of posts on “pre-teen” or maybe “single-digit” octopodes and octopode dishes, here and here.

Now, how to clean the octopi. I had NO CLUE. So I decided to photograph Victor cleaning them instead. :) Yup, I don’t HAVE to do everything myself, it’s a huge plus of living with wonderful crew, for two of whom a birthday feast was being prepared, with octopode experiments as part of the menu. Take a small sharp knife and cut a slit in the bulbous octopus head…

Locate the brains, guts, ink sac of the octopuses and gently but firmly tug on it until the connective tissue/muscle gives or tears. Discard the muck. Rinse the octopi and either keep them whole, as we did, or sever them into pieces. Some recipes only call for using the tentacles, but I find it wasteful not to use the heads.

Up soon, a couple of recipes using the baby octopuses…

The post How to Clean Baby Octopi/Octopuses/Octopodes appeared first on Market Manila.

Octopus is my new favorite ingredient from the Nasugbu market. I have written a post on octopus once before, and made it into a salad with prawns that turned out reasonably well, here. So last week while doing my rounds in the seafood section of the Nasugbu market, I spotted several fresh looking specimens and quickly acquired two of them, a total of roughly 2 kilos, for a wallet friendly price of PHP220 ($4.50). We were having several guests for lunch and I thought another octopus salad might be nice…

The octopodes/octopuses/octopi were cleaned, lightly ‘beaten’ with a mallet, and boiled for some 45-50 minutes until tender. These were drained thoroughly and wiped with paper towels before being doused with good olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled over a charcoal flame for some 4-5 minutes until crisp on some edges and still moist in most parts of the tentacles.

The 16 tentacles were sliced on the bias and placed in a bowl. We were on the second to last day of our holiday at the beach, so our fridge was running low on ingredients and we just had to make do with what was on hand… I added some chopped plump and slightly moist sun-dried tomatoes, grilled red capsicum or bell peppers, olive oil, some lemon juice, salt and pepper and some chopped Italian parsley…

Toss this lightly with your hands and serve at room temperature or slightly chilled. This salad was a bit dense but delicious nevertheless. It would have been perfect with some baby arugula leaves but we didn’t have any left. A fairly discerning guest list for lunch that day made up of Mrs. MM’s cousins and some family friends were all quite surprised by the octopus salad. The entire serving dish in the photo below was wiped out in no time!

Done properly, the octopus should be slightly chewy but still moist with crisp outer edges. Octopus pairs beautifully with good olive oil and a simple splash of fresh lemon juice, but I suspect this recipe would also work well with an Asian dressing with soy, lime juice, etc. For eight guests we had this octopus salad, along with some lechon sisig, some extremely fresh kinilaw na tanguigue, followed by a arroz negro or black squid ink paella with aioli, chili crabs and fish grilled in banana leaves. Yum. :)

A photo of the kinilaw…

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