To make soft-boiled octopus, wash the octopus normally without using salt. Just wash it with water, but you can also wash it with flour. Salt will make the octopus tough, so don't use salt alone. Daikon radish is really good, but you'll end up using a fair amount of it, so I wash it well with water.

After washing it once with water, defrost it, then wash each sucker one by one to remove any sand and other debris. One thing to note is that it will be slightly more heavily defrosted than normal, but since it is defrosted, it is still raw. After that, you will clean the warts (suckers) again, so wash it just enough to be able to do that. The suckers tend to collect floating particles and are full of bacteria, so be sure to remove any dirt.

Next, we put it in the pot and rehydrate it, using bancha tea and bonito. At this time, we must first prepare the sieve carefully. This varies slightly depending on the pot we are using, so we weave it while putting it in the pot so that it fits perfectly. Some of the sieves we use were woven last year, but if we wash them well, they can be used for about two years. If they are not woven that well, they will be ruined if they come off when we put them in the pot. This is a very important process that can change the finished product. The sieve is prepared by the person in charge of cooking octopus and other ingredients, and the person working under him prepares it. This is the job of the side pot to look at the schedule for the month and decide how many pots and sieves are needed for cooking this day, and prepare them. Moreover, it is not done during the work, but in the time when you have free time. When you are told to bring the pot because you are going to cook, the sieve must already be ready, and it must be assembled properly. When putting it in a pot and putting it on the fire, we put a weight on it so that it doesn't float too much, and then we turn the heat up. It takes about two days to soften it, but now some people use a pressure cooker to soften it. However, in our case, we don't just soften it, we let the flavors soak in to keep it fresh, so we take the time. It doesn't go all the way through, but it gets close. The fibers in octopus and squid are not hard to digest, but they do tighten it up. We soften it until all the fibers of the octopus are soft, and once it's soft to a certain extent, it starts to tighten up again, and then we boil it again to break down all the fibers.

Once it has completely cooled down, drain it once, then season and simmer. While simmering, do not move the pot, but move the strainer around to change its position depending on the heat. Keep packing it as tight as you can, but for the last soup, if you are making five pots, be sure to combine all the pots together to adjust the flavor, and then redistribute it.

As for seasoning, what is different from the past is that we use less sugar. I wouldn't say we use half the amount of sugar we used before, but we have cut it down considerably. It's not good in terms of shelf life, but there's no point making something that people don't eat (that doesn't taste good), and there's no point in making preserved food, so I try to make things that people can enjoy. If you take your time to make it, it won't spoil easily and will last a few days even with less sugar. One pot makes about five or six bottles, but because we have a limited number of gas stoves, seven cups is the maximum amount we can make at one time.

Octopus has stronger properties in its meat than in its skin, so the skin peels off easily when it's cooked. This can make the octopus lose its color and luster, so one of the most difficult aspects of cooking it is to make sure the skin doesn't peel off. You also need to make sure the warts don't get torn off, because it's a lucky charm used during the New Year, so it's no good if they're torn, peeled, separated, or torn, so you need to make sure you can use it as is.