Conquering the Slimy and Slippery Octopus @ Home

I've always appreciated the taste and texture of Octopus but I have always relied on the professionals to cook it for me but not today! I decided to try cooking octopus myself and surprisingly the results were pretty great! If you are a little grossed out by how it looks, don't think about it! You are missing out as octopus has great flavor and taste! I bought a 3/4 lb whole Octopus for this experiment.

Ingredients:

3/4 lb Octopus
Salt
Cooking Oil (used Avocado oil)
Water
Lemon
Black Pepper
3-4 cloves of Garlic

Instructions:

1) Clean the octopus really well with cold running water to remove sand from the tentacles
2) Remove the black plastic beak from the mouth which can be found directly underneath the head

Underneath the Head

Black Beak has been removed

 3) Clean out and remove the insides of the head of the octopus, should be just an empty pocket after it's all done

Clean and remove the inside!

4) Remove the outer layer skin on the head of the octopus

All cleaned!

5) Bring a pot of water to a boil and generously salt the water, insert slices of lemon, and dump in minced garlic into the pot.

6) Blanch the whole Octopus and repeat 3 times with 10 second intervals in between (this relaxes the octopus and prevents from stiffening up/making for a tough texture)

7) Reduce to a simmer and set timer to 45 minutes (usually it's 1 hr per lb)

8) Now time has elapsed, let it rest for 5 minutes or so.

 
9) Dice the octopus into nice edible portions and sprinkle cooking oil, salt, and pepper over it.
10) Cheers!

Tada!