What I love about the markets here in Gensan is the variety of seafoods one can find everyday. My motto when going to the market is “anything goes…”. I derive inspiration for my cooking for the week from the array of vegetables and and treasure trove of seafood  (much like loose diamonds) one can find here. Recently, a friend’s birthday called for a celebration and I promised a pasta dish. I was contemplating on doing a red pasta dish with homemade Italian sausage when I saw these wonderful beauties!

fresh octopus

Octopus in pasta, why not? I love seafood pasta so my imagination worked overtime to come with this dish. First though, you have to blanch the octopus. The tentacles would curl and would look this:

blanched octopus_dorsal view

The pasta tasted great even if the picture below doesn’t look like it! Anyway, I’m sharing this with Presto Pasta Nights hosted this week by Katie of One Little Corner of the World.

fettucine and octopus

Octopus and Fettucine Orientale

2 octopus (~500 grams)
350 grams fettucine
1/2 cup naturally-fermented soy sauce
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tsp finely minced ginger
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp toated sesame seeds
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to the boil. Add 1 tsp salt. When water is boiling, put the octopus on the pot and blanch for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Chop the tentacles and head. Put in a bowl and season salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly then add the soy sauce, ginger, sugar and 1 tbsp sesame oil. Marinate for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cook fettucine according to package instructions. Reserve 1/2 cup of broth from cooking pasta.

Drain octopus and reserve marinade. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and stirfry the octopus for about 2 minutes. Remove from pan and keep warm on a plate. Heat pan juices then add the reserved marinade and pasta broth. Bring to the boil then gently simmer till slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the pasta, octopus and remaining sesame oil then mix thoroughly to coat the pasta with the sauce. When pasta is heated through, transfer to plate and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds before serving.