Sautéed baby octopus タコのソテー

This is one of the dishes I made from a package of frozen small octopuses (octopi?) (we’ll call them guys) which I found in the frozen case of our Japanese grocery store. The package indicated this was a product made in the U.S. for an Italian American clientele. The package contained three little guys and I used two in my oden おでん (I did not take pictures but I posted octopus in oden previously). I made one into this dish. This was sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and black pepper. We had this with red wine.



I washed and salted the thawed guys. I kneaded them in a metal bowl in an attempt to tenderize.



I then boiled them in water with added salt, sake, and a small splash of rice vinegar for 30 minutes on low heat.



After 30 plus minutes, the octopus shrank quite a bit.



I cut two into several long pieces and placed then in my oden pot and simmered for 1 hour or so with other oden items. This was very tender and nice. The remaining one, I cut into bite sized pieces, placed them in a ZipLoc bag and added olive oil. I kept this in the fridge for a few days before we got back to it. I simply sautéed it in olive oil and seasoned it rather severely with salt and freshly ground black pepper.



The octopus was very tender and the flavor profile went well with wine. If I find a similar package again I will definitely buy one but so far I have not seen this item in the Japanese grocery store.