How To Prepare Octopus

This takes just a few minutes once you've done it a couple of times.

It can be a fairly messy job with a fair bit of ink sometimes, so clear a decent space and have a watertight bin bag nearby for the unwanted bits.

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1. Lay your octopus flat on a chopping board, tentacles to the right.
2. Chop the thin ends off the tentacles and discard. Anything less than the width of a chopstick.  You can leave them on, but they tend to shrivel and go stringy when cooked.
3. Make a cut right through immediately under the octopus' eyes.  You will then have the tentacles as once piece, the head as another.
4. In the middle of the tentacle piece there will be a sharp beak, the octopus' mouth parts.  Push this out from underneath, towards where the head would have been.  It will come out very easily.  What's left can be cut up into bite-sized pieces.
5. To clean the head, carefully cut up one side.  Try not to pierce any of the innards.
6. Once cut, you can open it up and scrape away all the innards.  You will be left with a nice clean piece, which can be sliced much like a pepper.  Don't try to cook it whole, it will curl up in a ball and go tough.

TENDERISING: Small octopus are fairly tender, the bigger ones can be tough.  You can tenderize them by marinading in acids like lemon juice, or mechanically by repeatedly hitting them like they do in Greece, or easiest of all...freezing them.  I buy them fresh, freeze them in batches un-gutted for 2 weeks, and then thaw them out overnight and use them as required.

For recipes where you are slow cooking for hours the octopus can be used without bothering to tenderize.  Phew.