Chef Lupita
Almejas Tatemadas de Loreto
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Pulpo en Su Tinta Sudcaliforniano
Created by
La Paz's Spanish-rooted main: octopus simmered in its own ink with white wine, potatoes, and chile serrano. The black-sauced cazuela that anchors a Sunday lunch on the Sea of Cortez.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Special Occasion
Dinner Party
Date Night
30 min
Active Time
1 hr 45 min cook•2 hr 15 min total
Yield4 to 6 servings
This is from Baja California Sur. Specifically from La Paz, the small capital city on the Sea of Cortez where the fishing boats come in at dawn and the home kitchens still cook the way the Spanish brought it, adapted to what the Pacific gives them. Pulpo en su tinta is not Mexico City food. It is not Yucatecan. It is sudcaliforniano, and that means Spanish lineage, Mexican hand, and a peninsula that has always cooked closer to Sevilla than to Oaxaca.
The dish is a sofrito built on olive oil, onion, garlic, tomato, and chile serrano, deglazed with white wine, then darkened with the octopus's own ink. The sauce turns the color of a moonless night over the gulf. The potatoes go in to drink up that black sauce and the octopus simmers with everything until it is tender enough to cut with a fork. La manteca es el sabor in most of Mexico. Here it is the olive oil and the wine. Sudcaliforniano cooking sits on a Spanish hinge that the rest of the country never had.
My mother did not cook this dish. She was from Jalisco and a peninsula six hours by plane from her kitchen might as well have been another country. I learned it in La Paz from a senora named Doña Cristina who ran a small comedor near the malecon and served it over rice every Sunday for thirty years. She showed me how to dip the octopus three times before submerging it. She showed me the wine corks she still drops in the boiling water. She told me the ink is the dish, that without the tinta you have made something else and you should call it something else. Asi se hace y punto.
Pulpo en su tinta arrived in Mexico through Spanish colonial cuisine, a direct descendant of the Galician and Andalusian tradition of cooking cephalopods in their own dark liquid, and it took root most firmly along the Baja California peninsula where Spanish missionaries and settlers established fishing communities beginning in the 17th century. The peninsula's relative isolation from central Mexico, separated by the Sea of Cortez and the Sonoran desert, allowed Iberian dishes to persist with less indigenous adaptation than they underwent in mainland states like Oaxaca or Veracruz. Baja California Sur's commercial octopus fishery, centered in the Bahia de La Paz and the Pacific waters off Magdalena Bay, supplies the bulk of Mexico's wild-caught octopus and has made the dish a regional fixture rather than a special-occasion import.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
whole octopus
Quantity
1, about 3 pounds
cleaned, beak and ink sac reserved if available
wine corks (optional)
Quantity
2
the old Spanish trick to keep the octopus tender
white onion (for the boil)
Quantity
1 medium
halved
head of garlic (for the boil)
Quantity
1
halved crosswise
bay leaves
Quantity
2
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
squid or octopus ink
Quantity
4 packets (4 grams each), or 2 tablespoons reserved octopus ink
Spanish olive oil
Quantity
1/4 cup
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
finely chopped
garlic cloves
Quantity
6
finely chopped
ripe Roma tomatoes
Quantity
3
finely chopped
fresh chile serrano
Quantity
2
finely chopped, seeds in
dry white wine
Quantity
1 cup
yellow potatoes
Quantity
2 medium
peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
dried Mexican oregano
Quantity
1 teaspoon
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
bay leaf
Quantity
1
flat-leaf parsley
Quantity
2 tablespoons
chopped
cooked white rice (optional)
Quantity
for serving
lime halves (optional)
Quantity
for serving
hand-pressed corn tortillas or crusty bolillo (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole octopuscleaned, beak and ink sac reserved if available | 1, about 3 pounds |
| wine corks (optional)the old Spanish trick to keep the octopus tender | 2 |
| white onion (for the boil)halved | 1 medium |
| head of garlic (for the boil)halved crosswise | 1 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| squid or octopus ink | 4 packets (4 grams each), or 2 tablespoons reserved octopus ink |
| Spanish olive oil | 1/4 cup |
| white onionfinely chopped | 1 medium |
| garlic clovesfinely chopped | 6 |
| ripe Roma tomatoesfinely chopped | 3 |
| fresh chile serranofinely chopped, seeds in | 2 |
| dry white wine | 1 cup |
| yellow potatoespeeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes | 2 medium |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1 teaspoon |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/2 teaspoon |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| flat-leaf parsleychopped | 2 tablespoons |
| cooked white rice (optional) | for serving |
| lime halves (optional) | for serving |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas or crusty bolillo (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Large 8-quart stockpot for boiling the octopus
- •Wide 12-inch cazuela or heavy enameled skillet
- •Sharp chef's knife for cutting the octopus
- •Wooden spoon for the sofrito
Instructions
- 1
Tenderize the octopus
If your octopus came whole and uncleaned, rinse it well under cold water, remove the beak from the underside of the body, and turn the head inside out to clean it. If the ink sac is intact, snip it free with kitchen scissors and reserve it in a small bowl with two tablespoons of cold water. Beat the octopus on a hard surface or against the side of the sink for a minute or two. Sounds violent. It is. The connective tissue needs the abuse or the meat will fight you for an hour.
Frozen octopus is actually better than fresh for this dish. The ice crystals do the tenderizing work for you. Thaw it overnight in the refrigerator and skip the beating. - 2
Boil the octopus
Fill a large stockpot with water and bring it to a rolling boil. Add the halved onion, halved garlic head, bay leaves, salt, and the wine corks if you have them. The corks are an old Spanish trick the senoras of La Paz still use. Whether they actually do anything is a debate I will not enter. Holding the octopus by the head, dip it into the boiling water three times, letting it curl, then submerge it fully. This sets the tentacles in their pretty curl. Reduce to a low simmer and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, until a knife slides into the thickest part of a tentacle with no resistance.
- 3
Cool and cut
Lift the octopus out of the broth and set it on a cutting board. Let it cool for ten minutes, just enough to handle. Reserve one cup of the cooking liquid. Cut the tentacles off the body and slice them on a slight bias into 1/2-inch pieces. Cut the body open, scrape away anything still inside, and chop it into similar-sized pieces. The skin and the suckers stay on. Those purple suckers are part of what makes the dish look like the dish.
- 4
Build the sofrito
Heat the olive oil in a wide cazuela or heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until it turns translucent, about five minutes. Add the chopped garlic and the chile serrano. Cook another two minutes, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant but not browned. Add the chopped tomatoes and a good pinch of salt. Cook for ten minutes, stirring now and then, until the tomatoes break down completely and the oil starts to separate from the sofrito at the edges. This is when you know the base is ready. Rushing this step is the most common mistake.
The sofrito is Spanish in technique and Mexican in ingredient. Sudcaliforniano cooking sits exactly on that hinge. Do not skip the chile serrano thinking the dish should be mild. La Paz cooks like the coast it sits on. - 5
Bloom the ink
Pour the white wine into the sofrito and let it bubble hard for two minutes to cook off the harsh alcohol. In a small bowl, stir the squid ink packets (or the reserved octopus ink) with a few tablespoons of the reserved octopus broth until smooth. Pour the ink mixture into the cazuela. The whole pot will turn black within seconds. That is the dish announcing itself. Stir to combine and let it simmer for another two minutes.
- 6
Simmer with the octopus and potatoes
Add the cubed potatoes, the dried oregano, black pepper, bay leaf, and the cut octopus to the cazuela. Pour in the remaining reserved octopus broth, enough to barely cover everything. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The potatoes should turn jet black on the outside and tender on the inside. The sauce should thicken to coat the back of a spoon. Taste for salt now. The octopus broth is salty already, so wait until the end to adjust.
- 7
Finish and serve
Pull the cazuela off the heat. Fish out the bay leaf. Scatter the chopped parsley over the top. Serve directly from the cazuela, ladled over white rice in shallow bowls. Set lime halves and warm tortillas or crusty bolillo on the table. The bread is for sopping up the black sauce, and you will want to. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •If your fishmonger has fresh octopus with the ink sac intact, ask for it and reserve the ink. If not, packets of squid ink (tinta de calamar) sold in Spanish markets or online work fine. Doña Cristina used the packets when fresh ink was scarce and never apologized for it. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade, but this one is honest.
- •The wine matters. Use a dry Spanish white you would actually drink, an albariño or a verdejo. Cooking wine is not wine. It is salted, oxidized garbage with a French-sounding label.
- •Pulpo en su tinta is even better the next day. Make it Saturday morning, refrigerate it, eat it Sunday at midday. The flavors deepen overnight and the sauce thickens in a way it cannot in a single afternoon.
Advance Preparation
- •The octopus can be boiled and cut up to one day ahead. Refrigerate it submerged in a cup of its cooking broth so it does not dry out.
- •The full dish keeps refrigerated for three days and improves on the second. Reheat gently over low heat with a splash of water or broth to loosen the sauce.
- •Pulpo en su tinta does not freeze well. The potatoes turn grainy and the octopus loses its tender bite.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 330g)
Calories
410 calories
Total Fat
14 g
Saturated Fat
2 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
11 g
Cholesterol
130 mg
Sodium
820 mg
Total Carbohydrates
26 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
43 g
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