Mollusk Mania

While doing our grocery shopping on Tuesday, Ariana insisted that we get the octopus that was sitting in the seafood case. She had very much wanted to try cooking it up for dinner.

The mollusk was quite the tenacious bugger. Even in death it gripped the butcher paper with one sticky tentacle and a bunch of fake plastic grapes with the other as the seafood clerk picked it up off its icy nest.

Weighing in at 1.29 pounds, this bugger was not about to break the bank and was a very small price to pay for culinary experimentation.

Of course we told no one of our purchase,

preferring to see the expressions on their faces

at the great unveiling.

You got to be kidding!

But kidding we were not.

Unlike most seafood, which cooks up in a matter of minutes, the Joy of Cooking said to simmer the octopus for at least 45 minutes in order to tenderize it. (It took more like an hour and a half for this mollusk.)

For something so floppy and limp, it sure puffed and curled up in the cooking pot. The water turned a deep rose pink the longer it simmered.

Here's the bottom side of the occy after it was cooked.

And here's the top.

The flesh was a bit sticky, but that was probably due to the ink. Ariana said that her fingers got stained from eating the octopus.

It was tasty.

Even Joe liked it.