Octopus – Part 1– tender or not and what is tender

Octopus has bad reputation for being a rubbery and tasteless produce. I concur that more often than not, octopus served in restaurants fit this description. Correctly prepared it is a fantastic and relatively inexpensive produce that should not be overlooked. There are many ideas on how to tenderize octopus. Before we go into that, I think many people search too much for tenderness, some go so far in their search that what they look for, frankly is quite beyond what is natural and really only to be found in baby’s food and for a reason. Octopus is not supposed to be tenderer than veal fillet. It is supposed to show some resistance when you eat it, that is part of the identity of the octopus. In my world a well prepared octopus will still be quite a distance from a rubbery and tough texture.

Octopus contains collagen. The bigger the octopus, the more collagen they contain. Ultimately the collagen needs to broken down. The issue in this post is to elaborate what to do before cooking the octopus.

The practice that is advocated by many writers is giving the octopus a good beating up, which it is claimed will tenderize them. I have always found this to be nonsense and I know of no serious chef who does it. I wonder what it would take to beat up a 15 kilo octopus like those that Rocco Iannone of Papacarbone often prepares and the result is almost as tender as veal fillet. Being overrun by a car? That is actually what once almost happened when Rocco came back to the restaurant with the seafood he had collected in Portici. The huge octopus, which Rocco held in a tight grip in his hands, was still very much alive and escaped Rocco’s grip when Rocco was cheering me on my arrival and the beast started to crawl on the street outside the restaurant. Two cars almost hit each other trying to avoid running over the huge creature, presumably mistaken for E.T. by the drivers.

Freezing is another practice that is suggested and while this certainly improves the tenderness, it is not optimal because the tenderness is the one of a ruined texture and because prolonged freezing will result in lipid oxidation that adversely affects the taste. It is however common practice in the Mediterranean to freeze the octopus with water and yes the result, for sizes under monster sizes, is a tender octopus but it is not the kind of tenderness that I look for. Many fish mongers around the Mediterranean will tell you that people prefer frozen octopus to that of live ones. I don’t.

Small octopus, which I will write about in the next post, need no real pre-treatment. One of the major mistakes is to cook octopus, except for the baby size, when they are alive or too fresh. They will literally always end up chewy. Just like beef and some fish, octopus needs a bit of ageing. One way to do this is to put the octopus in sea water in the fridge. It has to be a cool fridge. You change the sea water every day until it is ready to cook. The time will depend on the size of the octopus. For a medium sized octopus, it may be ready to cook after 2-3 days. For a monster octopus of 10-15 kilos it may be ready after 5-7 days. One sign that it is ready to go in the pot, is that the color changes but some experience is required in determining when the octopus is quite ready to cook since all octopuses are not alike. I will come back with different cooking methods and strategies in future posts.