flanerie

Lovely legs

I’m a sucker for good octopus, if you’ll pardon the pun, and Pulpo a la Gallega is a supremely easy, wonderfully tasty and very impressive dish – be it as a main course or a starter.

Octopi are fairly difficult to get hold of, at least in my experience in the UK. If you are fortunate enough to live in Spain, you shouldn’t have any problem. Here in Manchester, though, the only place I know where fresh, whole octopus can be bought is the wonderful Bury Market.


So, once you have your octopus, you will need to clean and tenderise it. I just bashed it all over with a rolling pin for 5 minutes, and it turned out OK.

Done that? Good. Now bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. I have heard various people swear by using a copper pot, but I don’t see how that can possibly matter. Once the water is boiling, dip the whole octopus in it three or four times, just enough that the tentacles start to curl.

Now boil the octopus for between 20 and 30 minutes. The bigger the octopus, the more time you’ll need, obviously.

Once this time has elapsed, take the pot off the heat and leave the octopus submerged for a further twenty minutes or so. You can use this time to boil up some spuds – floury or otherwise, the choice is yours.

Once the taties are ready and you’ve cut them into bite sized pieces, remove the octopus from the water and cut the head away from the tentacles. Most people discard the head, as it isn’t used in this recipe as a rule, but it’s less wasteful to keep it and use it in a salad or something the following day. Cut the tentacles into pieces.

It doesn’t say so in any other recipe for this dish that I’ve read, but I tend to flash fry the octopus pieces and the potatoes together for a minute or two, and add some sea salt and a dash of pepper in the process.

Arrange on a plate (a wooden dish is more traditional – I must remember to get some sometime), add parsley and sweet paprika/pimentón to garnish, and enjoy.