Ooooh, it’s a simple recipe and accompanying video for cooking octopus. I want to do this. My wife and daughter would see that video with rising horror, and are probably greatly relieved that they’ve got me quarantined in the frozen midwest, far from any coast where I might actually come home some evening with a large mollusc and a hungry glitter in my eye.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The only thing that grossed me out was how liberally he doused the dish with olive oil.
And talk about shrinkage!
Am I the only one who feels sorry for them? Smart, sentient creatures dragged from the sea and hacked to bits. Perhaps there’s a humane way to dispatch them like freezing?!
A better recipe: Wash thoroughly, cut in pieces, bring to a boil in red dry wine, with a little balsamic vinegar, black peppercorns and a little cinnamon (yes, cinnamon) but no salt — it’s salty enough already. Reduce, simmer till tender (30-45 minutes or so.) Serve with cracked wheat pilaf, a little sheep or goat yogurt on the side.
I’m Greek, trust me on this.
____________________________________________
Cephalicious!
I will trust a Greek on that, but whoa, that’s going to require a lot of wine.
You know, you’re making this even harder for the wife and kids — they know I’m going to Minneapolis next week, and I might just be able to pick up a frozen octopus at the asian grocery store there.
The video says that you can buy them frozen — and they’ll keep well in Morris.
I absolutely love octopus, although my attempts to cook it at home have mixed results.
The most successful dish was made with red wine and bay leaf, a bit of black pepper and of course olive oil.
Some species seem to require less cooking. I was surprised that I ordered grilled octopus in a Greek restaurant last summer and the order came in in just minutes. It was absolutely tender and very fresh.
Some weeks ago I bought three smaller octopuses and those came with their internal organs, so I had to clean them and got to see what was inside.
I also cook the head- tastes the same.
I make calamari tentacle stew. Looks hilariously creepy.
I am so going to Greece again this summer and I am so getting fresh grilled octopus and fried calamari…
And, PZ, all of the above is partly your fault!
This reminds me of when I was living in Okinawa, back in the 90’s. The night before we left the island, we decided to stay up all night, so we could sleep on the plane.
We took a road trip to the northernmost tip of the island, and then on the way back stopped to investigate a 30 foot tall Buddha on the side of the road. When we got out of the car, a huge dog started barking at us.
It turned out there was a Japanese family camping there in the woods. We didn’t speak Japanese, and they didn’t speak English, but both sides started passing out alcohol, and then a man walked out of the ocean with an octopus in his hands, and handed it to a woman standing nearby. About 20 minutes later, she brought out a dish of tentacles to pass around.
I can’t imagine ever having a fresher octopus.
Too bad I really don’t like it. It tastes/chews pretty much like fish-flavored bubble gum to me.
Now octopus jerky is a different matter — that’s tasty.
David
I’m still waiting to try the squid recipes the New England Aquarium posted last month…
OMG, you’d use FROZEN seafood? Cretins. Yuck.
Speaking of fresh calamari. This is lovely fresh piece of calamari we bought last year only to open it up and find it full of its last meal(s).
And also speaking of what the Japanese call seafood. If you click my name below I have a video of my experience with whales. Hint: you don’t harpoon them.
As someone who has eaten galician style octopus many times (pulpo a la gallega we call it back home), I must say it is a delicious dish.
And regarding the dousing on olive oil, do not worry, the oil does not get inside the octopus skin (as you can see in the video, it all ends up on the plate), so you don’t get thousands of calories.
I’m Greek as well, and I was lucky enough to have fresh octopus in Greece a couple of years ago. It was great, though I have to honestly say I like calamari (even the stuff that’s not as fresh) a lot better.
Of course, I’m only technically half greek, so maybe I missed the octopus loving gene and got the calamari one instead.
Ahh, Bittman. The closest thing foodies have to a patron saint (at least those heathen foodies like me.) He’s fantastic on this kind of simple food, as he’s always been a strong advocate of minimalism in cooking.
I’ll have to side with the grilled octopus, myself. We have a fantastic old Greek restaurant here in Philly that serves it that way, marinated/boiled and grilled quick and tender (and definitely not rubbery or bubblegum like.) And the olive oil is a necessity, just make sure it’s good extra-virgin so it has actual taste.
I’ve been able to reproduce it at home and Bittman is right, frozen is actually better and is easier to keep tender. It’s probably the cellular breakdown that accompanies freezing, which harms most foods (it’s what old Clarence Birdseye was trying to minimize) but seems to improve some and this is a fine example*. Any of you scientific types with the lab equipment and comparative octopus samples handy want to examine the cells of fresh and frozen to give us evidence on this anecdotal observation? You can always eat your results afterwards (or at least your samples.)
*My mother-in-law, who is a cook in the same way the DI is a scientific organization, learned this trick for the one dish she can cook a long time ago. Like all good Jewish mothers, she makes brisket, but she found by accident that if she cooked it completely once, then froze it and cooked it a second time afterwards, it became tender far beyond what even just cooking it twice with refrigeration in between would achieve. I’ve exploited this trick too, and it produces some of the best roast beef you can imagine, literally falling-apart tender.
PZ: “…and are probably greatly relieved that they’ve got me quarantined in the frozen midwest, far from any coast where I might actually come home some evening with a large mollusc and a hungry glitter in my eye.”
Wuss. You don’t have a cephalopod pond in your backyard?
Of course, you’d have to move them to the basement pond in the winter, but surely your gratful family would be pleased :)
The tentacles are different, too. I once bought several tentacles and some were short and tender, but there was one with a sort of fin in the middle that was much tougher.
What was that?
PZ, I live in Minnesota and I’ve seen frozen octopus in Cub Foods.
I like seafood but on the two occasions I had octopus it was pretty rubbery and tasteless.
Am I the only one who feels sorry for them? Smart, sentient creatures dragged from the sea and hacked to bits. …
Posted by: Paul Phoenix | March 6, 2008 10:24 AM
You are not alone. But judging from the comments, there’s only two of us.
I love octopus and have had it a variety of ways–deep fried, sauteed, stewed, as sushi. My favorite was a Korean stew of a variety of vegetables and seafoods, including tiny baby octopus cooked whole. Mmmm. They’re so CUTE! And delicious.
Unfortunately the last time I had whole cooked baby octopus it was at the local Chinese buffet, and whoever prepped them didn’t do such a great job. I bit down on one and its belly was full of fish scales. *shudders and gags* It has put me off the baby octopus for awhile.
I love octopus and have had it a variety of ways–deep fried, sauteed, stewed, as sushi. My favorite was a Korean stew of a variety of vegetables and seafoods, including tiny baby octopus cooked whole. Mmmm. They’re so CUTE! And delicious.
Unfortunately the last time I had whole cooked baby octopus it was at the local Chinese buffet, and whoever prepped them didn’t do such a great job. I bit down on one and its belly was full of fish scales. *shudders and gags* It has put me off the baby octopus for awhile.
When our son was 2-3 he took great joy in picking all of the baby octopi out of the cioppino and taunting them (“oh no, baby!”) before growling and stuffing them into his mouth.
He’s a much more boring eater these days, at age 9 – I can’t even get him to consider calamari, much less cioppino.
That being said, raw octopus is the only sushi I can’t manage – it’s like trying to masticate a superball.
Come to Detroit during hockey season, PZ. Plenty of cephalopods at the Joe. Who knows, maybe Al Sobotka (official Wings flung octopus picker upper) could be convinced to let you substitute for him during a Stanley Cup game. Or you could visit one of the many restaurants in Greektown and eat your fill.
I have always preferred saki-ika (Japanese sweet/salty preshredded squid jerky) to the octopus dishes I have tried. Obviously extra tentacles = extra tasty. Plus it often comes (even to Morris) in a package with a cartoon of a happy squid.
http://www.amazon.com/Wel-Pac-Saki-Regular-dried-squid/dp/B0006G1KA2
(4 oz package and “hot” flavors also available.)
(Can you spot the premature generalization?)
My dad once tried to convince my vegetarian sister that calamari was a form of pasta. Um, no. Cephalopod does not equal macaroni product. Not even in the most offbeat Pastafarian theology.
Incidentally, most toddlers like chopped liver–perfect texture, melded tastes, just right as a dumpling filling.
My “regular” status at my favorite sushi restaurant was recently confirmed when I was sitting down at the bar and Elvis, the owner/head chef, passed a four-piece plate of ika sushi over to me, before even my chopsticks and wasabi had been laid down…
every one of my sushi eating sessions begins and ends with ika.
mmmmm… cephalicious indeed…
I always liked squid better than octopus, but both are great.
I’ve always wondered, since most species of cephalopod die en masse after they mate, wouldn’t the most humane way to harvest them be to wait for them to spawn and just pick them, freshly deceased, out of the water?
I suppose it might be possible that the mass death of the adults might be important to the local ecosystem and the developing young, in terms of fertilizing the area of whatnot. Does anyone know?
PZ I don’t know for sure if they have octopus but I know they have squid jerky (both hot & normal spice levels) @ United Noodle in mpls & just 1-2 blocks away is coastal seafoods. Your best bet for tentacled goodness.
http://www.unitednoodles.com
http://www.coastalseafoods.com
One of the great pleasures of being an adult is knowing that while some people will eat anything, I don’t have to.
Ick-snay on the octopus-ay, thank you very much. :D
I like squid (octopus also). Here is why I like squid. When I was a grad student at Texas Tech, we had a several day class field trip down to the coast. Due to really bad planning, we had had nothing to eat all day long. We ended up at the UT marine station at Aransas Pass. There was a tide trap set up in the channel with a light shining down in front of it. About 10 PM a school of 25-30 little 8 inch long squid came into the light. I found a cast net and caught them all. We took them directly to the kitchen, rolled them in flour, and threw them in hot Crisco. There were enough that everyone could have a couple. I’ve never tasted anything better.
Nope, three. Octopi are smart, can learn, and, according to Jacques Cousteau, show respect for the dead. The comparison I’ve heard is that they’re about as smart as cats. You wouldn’t eat a cat, would you? ;)
jesse said:
“You wouldn’t eat a cat, would you? ;)”
At least a cat is a mammal, which generally are made of yummy meat.
But an octopus is made of octopus. Blechh. ;D
You wouldn’t eat a cat, would you?
I personally wouldn’t. Some people apparently do, although in the contexts in which the accusation often comes up, I tend to think of it as the modern-day version of the Blood Libel — in other words, it’s usually used as a scurrilously racist thing said for no other point than to get your listener offended at the group at which you’re aiming it. That it’s probably untrue about any given member of any group at which it’s usually levelled (as opposed to provably untrue in the original case) doesn’t improve my opinion of the tactic at all.
Me, I won’t eat cats, dogs, or horses because I like a lot of them better than I like a lot of people (better personalities in general), and, having been quite charmed by an octopus at the Vancouver Aquarium years ago, I feel roughly similar about cephalopods.
It’s called pulpo a feira in galician and usually is served with the tentacles sliced instead of whole like in the photo. I can suggest the “chopitos” too as served in Andalusia: Little squids fried with lemon juice. Or the sepia a la plancha, grilled with garlic and parsley.
Usually the cephalopods in Spain are served in very simple ways that anyone can cook in his home. There are harder dishes too, like the stuffed squids (which requires the cooking, the sauce, made with the tentacles, and the stuffing) but they are the exception.
I’ve lived my whikle life in the tropics on the coast, octopus is practially a staple in our house. On Saturday night I had some lovely baby ones, which were probably too young to be away from their mother, but they were beeeoooottiiful.
Really I should have married a Greek instead of a Pom.
you should try takoyaki:
http://japanesefood.about.com/od/seafoodfish/r/takoyaki.htm
its a japanese dish made with octopus tentacles, i havent had any but i hear they are pretty good.
i imagine if your family had some octopus they wouldnt mind, as im sure you know the arms on an octopus are pure muscle…im not sure if it would be white meat or not…probably lean though…but all meat and no bone..
of course the japanese set the standard on eating whatever they pull up on a net…sushi, specifically maki rolls, but some others as well, for instance is made with nori (seaweed) wrapped around it. (also onigiri, another kind of sushi, is made with nori as well)
octopus is quite enjoyed as well as squid, you can get takoyaki at just about any matsuri, and many vendors in japan sell it.
Way cool…
In this one, the octopus is living.
I’d go for “sad” and “cruel” over “way cool” myself
Plenty of hunter-gatherers eat cats when they can get them. Goannas (monitor lizards) are the reptilian equivalent of small cats or ferrets, and they’re a staple of the traditional indigenous diet in Australia. And as long as we can get the human population down, there’s no reason why people shouldn’t live as high up the food chain as they feel comfortable with.
The most creative thing I ever did with cephalopod meat was calamari rings linked together in pairs. Just once, soon after I got married, and it went down very well. Any topologists out there can work out the trick?