Last year we traveled to Spain, and when we were in Santiago de Compostela we found a market with a guy selling octopus from a small food cart. The other night I was reading an article in San Diego Magazine about how octopus is blowing up in all the restaurants in San Diego. Check out the article here if you are interested. This reminded me of our street lunch in Santiago where we tried octopus for the first time. The only problem with trying it in Spain for the first time is that it has been really hard to top that experience since then.
Octopus is tough to cook – it is literally tough. An octopus is basically comprised of all muscle, so it can be a challenge to relax the meat enough to avoid being chewy. I’ve heard of sushi chefs massaging the meat for 2-3 hours to tenderize it. One sushi chef I talked to said you either cook it super fast and hot or extremely long and low. The guy in Santiago had the long and low method down to a science because he would pull out this beautiful octopus from his caldron of mystery that has been slowly breaking it down for the last day until he cuts a portion up for a customer. He was a man of simplicity as he just added some insanely good olive oil (I mean insanely good), sea salt, and a bit of paprika. It blew my mind and the experience will be etched in my mind forever.
