Natalia created this dish using her recipe for snail salad as the basis. Since octopus is more readily available, she tweaked her recipe by swapping out the protein. Because octopus is more absorbent than snail, she added a little more acid + olive oil.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup Red Wine Vinegar
2 tbsp. Sherry Vinegar
Juice from 1 Lemon
1 cup Olive Oil
Sea Salt + Black Pepper (to taste)
1 tbsp. pimenta moida (Portuguese Red Pepper)
1 Red Onion – finely minced
1 Spanish Onion – finely minced
1 Whole Bunch Fresh Flat Leaf Italian Parsley – chopped
1 Whole Bunch Fresh Cilantro – chopped
6 Cloves Garlic – finely minced
Whole Dry Spanish Octopus (6-8lb) boiled and sliced thin diagonally
Add all of the ingredients – except salt, pepper, and octopus – to a bowl and whisk. Pour the mixture over octopus, which should be sliced thin and diagonally, and mix. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate to chill for at least two hours. Serve when ready.
*Please note, that if you want to cook the octopus on your own you would boil it just covered in water for approximately 45 minutes in a partially covered pot. You would place the octopus in a pot just covered with water and add one red onion and one Spanish onion plus a bay leaf and boil all until cooked. You would then need to cool/chill before serving.
**Since this process is time-consuming, you may buy boiled packaged octopus at Portugalia Marketplace and simply open the package and slice the octopus on a diagonal to use.