As I promised in my last blog post, here is the recipe for octopus salad!  My dad has made this dish several times, and I have always wanted to try it, so I finally took the plunge and bought a package of frozen octopus on my last trip to Harris Teeter [I obviously haven’t been grocery shopping in a while… on my to-do list!].  Once you get past the tentacles, this is a quick, simple, and delicious dish to create.

Ingredients
2 lb octopus, thawed and rinsed (buy frozen and pre-cleaned)
3 tomatoes, quartered
1 shallot, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup roasted bell peppers
1/4 cup cured black olives (a key ingredient!)
1/3 cup fresh or dried parsley
(I recommend fresh, but dried parsley works in a pinch)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp capers
1/2 tsp salt

Preparation
1. Thaw frozen octopus.

2. Slice tomatoes, shallot, and garlic, and combine with other ingredients.
Add pepper to taste.

3. Boil octopus for 20 minutes with a cork.  This can be any cork without plastic.  It may seem odd, but my chef-of-a-dad swears by it.  Be careful not to boil for more than 20 minutes.  Any more than that will make the octopus rubbery!

4. Remove the octopus from the boiling water, let cool, and slice into 1 inch pieces.
The octopus should be a nice eggplant purple color.

5. Mix octopus and the prepared salad and serve.

Enjoy!