Pulpo - Octopus

One of the regional specialities in Galicia is octopus. We have enjoyed it at tapas bars and in the enpanada and so decided that we had to have a go at cooking it ourselves.

One book we read explains that octopus was traditionally tenderised by whipping it against the harbour wall. Alternatively beating it with a rolling pin was suggested. All a little extreme, and so we were pleased to read that freezing the octopus starts the tenderising process well. Not something we can do onboard, so we bought a frozen one in Muros.

Once cleaned and the beak and innards removed, the octopus is ready for the pot. Here begins the ‘scaring’ process where the octopus is boiled for a minute, then removed for a minute, and the cycle repeated 3 or 4 times until the octopus is ‘scared’; it has curled into a ball.

After a further 30 minutes of boiling it was tender and so was removed to cool so that it could be chopped up into bite-sized pieces.

We made 3 dishes: a green bean, red wine and shallot stew; a tomato and potato stew with rosemary, thyme and a little chilli (pictured above); and a tapas-style dish dusted with some of the fiery spanish pimentón and some sizzling olive oil (pictured below). All were very good so we will definitely be cooking octopus again.