Pulpo a feira

Ingredients

• Octopus — frozen and thawed2 kg
• Potatoes800 g
• Smoked paprika2 tbsp
• Hot paprika1 tsp
• Olive oil100 ml
• Coarse salt2 tsp
• Bay leaf1
• Onion1

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Bring a large pot of water to the boil with the onion and bay. Do not salt it.

   15 min

2. 2

   Hold the octopus by the head and dip the tentacles into the boiling water for five seconds, then lift it out. Repeat three times.

   6 min

3. 3

   Lower the octopus in whole and cook at a bare simmer for forty minutes.

   42 min

4. 4

   Test with a fork at the thickest part of a tentacle: it should go in without resistance.

   3 min

5. 5

   Turn off the heat and leave the octopus in the water for fifteen minutes; it finishes and softens further.

   17 min

6. 6

   Boil the potatoes in the same water and cut them into rounds.

   25 min

7. 7

   Cut the tentacles with scissors into centimetre pieces, lay them over the potato, dust with paprika and salt and pour over the oil.

   10 min

About the dish

The octopus is dipped into boiling water three times for a few seconds before the cooking starts. That trick — "frightening the octopus" — makes the skin tighten so it does not slip off.

Frozen octopus is better than fresh: freezing breaks the fibres and does the work of beating it. In Galicia it is frozen deliberately before cooking.

It is served on a wooden board rather than a plate. The wood takes up the excess moisture so the octopus does not sit in its own liquid — a function rather than a style.

Worth knowing

• — Do not salt the water until the cooking is done. In salted water the octopus turns tough, and the softness cannot be recovered.
• — Cut it with scissors rather than a knife. Scissors give clean rounds; a knife crushes the flesh and tears the skin.
• — In Galicia a copper pot is considered essential, and at the fairs nothing else is used. At home any pot works, but the tradition is worth knowing.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

420 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

18 g

Carbs

26 g

More from Spain

• Paella valenciana — Rice in a wide pan with chicken, rabbit and beans. It is never stirred once, and the crust on the bottom depends on that.
• Spanish tortilla — A thick omelette of potato and onion, where the potato is not fried but poached in oil until it is nearly a purée.
• Gazpacho — A cold tomato soup blended with bread and oil into an emulsion — that is what makes it thick rather than watery.