Octopus Terrine

octopus terrine
Originally uploaded by EatingVideo

I had bought a pair if frozen octopi the last time I was at the fish store, The act of freezing the octopus actually makes it more tender after cooking. Defrosted the octopus in the fridge over a couple of days and tried to decide what to make. I was going to make it for escabeche with capers, olives, onion and peppers, or a traditional galician way but decided instead to make a terrine that either way if it fell apart or had leftovers I could still make into escabeche.



defrosted octopi

I set a pot of water to boil, with no salt (it's supposed to make the octopus more chewy) a couple of bay leaves, peppercorns, and a penny (traditionaly octopus is cooked in a copper pot which gives it a darker color.)



I then dunked the octopus into the water 3 times letting the water come back to a boil after each dunk.



We shot a bit of a ponderous video of the whole process

terrine of octopus from Eugenio Monasterio on Vimeo.

As you can see we cooked potato in the same water after the octopus was done. The octopus was seasoned and placed in the terrine with plastic wrap, and unmolded the next day.



My son says it looks like a fossil. We served up the potato with pimenton



and served it all up



Served with some olive oil and some sea salt on the side. Turned out very tasty and makes a cool presentation.