Raw Octopus You just need to thaw it, then eat it as is. You can also grill or fry it, or add it to a salad or any meal.
The answer is yes; you can eat it raw and even alive if you wish to. But the meat is tough and rubbery. So, why would anyone want to eat octopus raw? Some say the taste is better when fresh and that cooking octopus ruins the flavor.
Octopus can be frozen for up to 24 months, so you'll be able to keep it in cold storage until it is served. It doesn't lose any of its original nutritional value, characteristics, or texture, and it defrosts quite quickly.
Keep in mind: Octopus will cook down considerably. Estimate a 5–7 lb. octopus for an 8-person first course. If frozen, let the octopus thaw overnight in the fridge.
Raw Octopus
The difference between cooked octopus and raw is simply the fact that one of them has been pre-cooked. The company freezes the octopus, cooks it, and freezes it again. The main advantage of buying cooked octopus is time savings. You just need to thaw it, then eat it as is.
These frozen octopus tentacles are fully cooked before freezing, so they simply need reheating. The vacuum pack process locks in the freshness and flavor of the pre-cooked octopus. Each tentacle weighs between 2.8-4.2 ounces.
One of the most popular items for sushi and sashimi, octopus (yanagi tako) is a sweet, mild-tasting, lean seafood. In sushi bars, the octopus is typically pre-cooked which results in its desirable chewy texture. In addition to sashimi and sushi presentations, octopus is delicious in tacos and salads.
If we need to defrost the octopus quickly, another option is to put it in a bowl of warm or room temperature water for about a half hour or place it under running water while moving it around so that it defrosts.
Place the octopus in a large pot covered with any braising liquid, from water to red wine. Alternatively, place the octopus in a dry pot and allow the fish to cook in its own juices. In either case, place the pot in an oven preheated to 200 degrees F and braise the meat for four or five hours.
When raw, octopus tastes faintly like the sea. It is not fishy; instead, it has a slightly salty and sweet flavor. But this flavor is so mild that some people will say that an octopus does not have its own flavor. For this reason, it is common for people to use dips and sauces to make the raw octopus tastier.
There's a popular Korean dish that involves raw octopus so fresh it's actually alive, or so the name “live octopus” would suggest. If you order it, you'll be met with chopped baby octopus tentacles still wriggling on the plate, served with minimal accompaniments like slivers of garlic and a dish of soy sauce.
A Korean raw dish, or hoe in Korean, that features a young live octopus cut into small pieces and served immediately. This is not the food to eat after a screening of Finding Dory.
Cook until octopus is tender enough that you can pierce the thick part of a tentacle with a paring knife with little resistance, about 1 hour; keep in mind that this time is a rough estimate, and the octopus may be done sooner or it may take longer, but it will get there. Let octopus cool in the cooking water.
Octopus can be eaten raw (alive, even, assuming you don't find that inherently cruel), and it can also be prepared using quick-cooking methods like sautéing, though it's riskier to do that than with, say, squid, a related animal that starts out much more tender.
Octopus muscles are full of collagen and they release a lot of gelatin, which if not drawn out from the muscles can leave the octopus rubbery and gelatinous. Use more water than you need to draw out as much of the excess gelatin as possible.
The skin of an octopus is one of the tastiest parts of the dish. While some people choose to remove the purple skin after cooking octopus, it is optional.
It turns out you can eat the head, tentacles, and other body parts with the exceptions of the intestines, ink, and beak. So that means, yes, you can eat the head of an octopus. What does an octopus taste like?
Octopus is much like squid: If you keep the cooking time minimal, under five minutes or so, you get a chewy but not unpleasant texture; this is a good technique for octopus salad or sushi. But for most preparations, long, slow cooking, which yields a tender texture, is best.
Note: Frozen octopuses are cleaned from the entrails, so the only thing you need to do do is remove the beak and the lower part of the sac.
It can be grilled, seared, boiled, braised, and even eaten raw as sashimi. One of the most popular preparations of squid is chopped, breaded, and fried.