Polvo a Lagareiro Octopus in the style of the olive oil maker

Take a large cleaned frozen octopus and cook it in a pressure cooker (water optional) with two whole onions for 30-45 minutes depending on size and check for tenderness. Then cut the octopus tentacles into large portions and season with sea salt. The head of the octopus can be used as well, but the tentacles are typical of what is served in restaurants. Since the octopus is already cooked; grill the tentacles over charcoal like you would a piece of rare to medium rare steak. The longer you grill it the tougher it becomes so be careful. Tough chewy octopus is not desirable. Another way to do it is to brown it in the oven along with the potatoes, but grilling is better in my opinion. Then wash and season with a lot of coarse salt the new potatoes and bake in a hot oven until cooked. Once the potatoes have been cooked, clean of excess salt and give a light punch to each potato, just hard enough to split the sides without mashing them into pieces. The skin of the potatoes should hold them together. Next you will heat the olive oil until it is very hot and add a lot of diced cilantro and garlic to the hot oil prior to serving. Let the cilantro and garlic cook in the oil a little before serving just to release some of the flavors and watch out for splattering. Don’t burn yourself. Lightly boil or steam some Rapini to accompany the octopus and potatoes and garnish with olives, cilantro and the cooked onions. Pour some of the hot olive oil over your meal and enjoy. All of the different elements of this dish can be prepared at the same time to reduce the production time to about an hour. There are different ways to prepare this dish and all retain its traditional character. Some call for red and yellow peppers to be incorporated, others say to bake the dish rather than grilling, so feel free to modify it to your liking. You can be creative with it.