Octopus with black olive sauce

• Serves: 4
• Type: entry

Background

This is a Peruvian dish in the 1950s introduced by Rosita Yimura, a Pervuian from Japanese descent. If it a dish that fuses the Peruvian and Japenese cuisines.

Ingredients

• Octupus: 1 kg

• Red onion: 1 (small)

• Bayleaf: 3

• Salt: 1 tablespoon

• Black pepper: 1 teaspoon

• Lemon juice: 2 tablespoon

• Mayonaise: 3 tablespoon

• Black olive sauce: 5 tablespoon

  • alternative: black olives, mixed, without seed: 150 g

• Optional:

  • parsley, for decoration

Note:

A fresh octopus has a lot of intact fibre, which means that it needs mechanical tenderization (pounding it repeatedly). For this reason, frozen octupus may be recommended.

Mechanical tenderization of an octopus

Steps

1. Cut the onion in 4 parts

   

   Octopus and onions

2. Boil 2.5 l of water with the salt, bayleaf and cut onion

3. Clean the octopus. (It is assumed that its brain has already been removed before you got it.)

4. When the water poils, hold the octopus with a fork and submerge it in the water for 20 seconds, then remove it. Repeat 3 times. If the octopus was frozen, make sure that the water is boiling each time the octupus is placed in the water

   

   Hold the octopus with a fork to submerge it in boiling water

   

   Octopus submerged in boiling water

5. Now that the octopus has been cooked, remove the beak (between the tentacles) and eyes (if present). Place the octopus on a plate and let it cool

6. When the octopus has cooled down, cut it in pieces of about half a centimeter thickness.

   

   Slicing the octopus’ tentacles

   

   The octopus’ tentacles, sliced

7. Use a bowl to make the cream sauce by mixing the mayonaise, lemon juice, the black pepper, and the black olive sauce.

8. To serve, for each person: place the octopus on a plate and place the sauce on top. Optionally decorate with parsley.