A different potato salad… with octopus
A different potato salad… with octopus
Equipment
- Meat mallet
- Pot
- Cutting board
- Bowl
Ingredients
- 1 kg Octopus
- 1 kg Potatoes
- 500 g Courgettes
- 500 g Green beans
- 500 g Tomatoes
- To taste Sweet paprika
- To taste Salt
- To taste Pepper
- To taste Extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Clean the octopus by removing eyes, entrails and rostrum.
- Rinse it under running water.
- Lightly beat it with a meat mallet.
- Bring a pot of water to a boil.
- Hold the octopus's head and immerse the tentacles in boiling water for a few seconds for 3 times.
- Once the tentacles have curled, place the octopus on a plate.
- Rinse the pot, fill it with cold water and add a teaspoon of salt.
- Place the octopus head down in the pan.
- When the water simmers, cover with a lid and cook for about half an hour.
- Turn off the heat and leave the octopus in its water without removing the lid.
- Meanwhile, boil the potatoes (washed and cut into chunks) for about 20 m.
- Sauté them in a pan for 10 m.
- When the octopus is done (it will take about 1 hour), move it to a cutting board, let it cool down and cut it into pieces.
- Place the octopus in a bowl with wedges of tomato, potatoes and the other vegetables, which you will have already boiled and cut into small pieces.
- Add extra virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper, add a pinch of sweet paprika and mix everything.
- Serve at room temperature.
The octopus and potato salad is a great classic to which we decided to give an original touch, by blanching the potatoes and adding some tasty vegetables. But before we get started, here are some helpful tips.
Salad: with fresh octopus it’s a whole other thing
In supermarkets you can find frozen octopus, but for our octopus and potato salad we recommend choosing the fresh one, as it has a more intense flavor (that taste of “sea” that unfortunately is lost in frozen specimens), and that typical consistency, almost crunchy and never chewy.
Remember that a really fresh octopus can be recognized because:
- It has very vivid colors
- It is tough and elastic to the touch
- It is covered with a glossy patina
Before cooking it, remember to gently beat it with a meat mallet, to soften the fibers. As for cooking, you can calculate 50 – 60 minutes per kilo of octopus.
Octopus salad, seared potatoes and more …
To make it more delicious, we decided to add green beans, courgettes and tomatoes to our octopus and potato salad.
As for the potatoes, once washed and cut into pieces, we recommend that you blanch them in water for 20 minutes, then pass them in a pan with a drizzle of olive oil for 10 minutes (they will form a very good crust).
The protagonist of our recipe is not only the octopus, but also the extra virgin olive oil, which manages to give the dish the final touch and to combine all the ingredients very well.
We used Il Casolare Fruttato Intenso Extra Virgin Olive Oil, characterized by a strong flavor, reminiscent of freshly pressed olives, ideal for enriching the flavor of octopus without covering it.
Now that you know all the tricks, you just have to buy the ingredients and get to work!
