Be patient, and you will be rewarded with exceptional octopus with a lovely texture, ready to be eaten as-is, or seared in a skilled or charred over hot coals on a grill. All you really need is time you need to cook the octopus just long enough so that the tough and chewy collagen in its flesh converts into silky and tender gelatin. We know because we've tested all of those tricks.except for the washing machine. Our mighty Giant Pacific Octopus arm spans (from arm tip to arm tip) can be up to 16 feet (4.9 meters) that’s about the length of an average car The adorable Banded String-Arm Octopus ( Ameloctopus litoralis) has exceptionally long arms that are 10x its body length The 7-Armed Octopus ( Haliphron atlanticus) is there to throw everything. You don't need an old folk method like adding a wine cork to the pot you don't need to beat the octopus against a rock (or with a meat pounder) and you definitely don't need to put it in the spin cycle of your washing machine (yes, some people do that).
People have come up with all sorts of crazy tricks for ensuring an octopus cooks up nice and tender, but most of them are unnecessary and ineffective.
Cutting up the octopus after it's cooked is easier than when it's raw and slithery.Adding the octopus to the pot of cold water yields the same results and frees you from having to wait for the water to boil.
