Western Colorado Catering Chef: Octopus Salad, a picture guide

Octopus Salad a picture guide

So my friend Sal Sassano from Sicily offers up his octopus salad recipe
to me as an appie idea for myself and friends. What is a chef to do?
Order octopus and start cooking of course! I am always on the prow for
something new. In the catering business there are those that lead and
those the try to follow. We lead and put ourselves out there on the edge
all the time.

So first we clean the octopus, sorry I forgot to take pictures that
first morning, then we boil and steam the octopus until it is cooked all
the way through. I use a lot of Old Bay, salt and pepper, then let is
steep in the cooking juices over night in the walk in, this allows it to
rest, and also allows it to relax and tenderize a little.

Then I cut it up into big pieces:

And the pieces should look nice and white with the purplish outer skin.
I wanted to skin it but Sal says no. However after eating it, I will
skin it next time. Did not like the mouth feel of the skin.

Then we have to cut the seamonster up:

Then we add in the garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and parsley and fold
into the octopus.

dice one red onion small, one stalk of celery and add to sea monster in
the bowl. Add some olive oil and toss.

Add in a mixture of olives, a little smoked salmon and a tin of
anchovies, fold together and cover, remove to cooler overnight.

Toss and serve:

It was very good, although I think if I had skinned the sea monster the
mouth texture would have been better. But hey that is the thing with
recipe development, you have to start somewhere and keep improving until
you say, ah that is it!