Octopus in Pimentón Oil

Where this dish comes from

Octopus preserved in oil belongs to the Atlantic edge of Iberia, where the pulpeiras of Galicia have cooked it in copper cauldrons at feria and romería for centuries. The three dips — asustar o polbo, 'frightening the octopus' — are not theatre: they set the skin so it stays on the flesh.

Pimentón itself is a New World ingredient given an Old World method. Peppers came back from the Americas in the sixteenth century; the monks of the Monastery of Yuste in La Vera dried them slowly over oak smoke, and by the 1700s that smoked paprika had become the defining seasoning of the Spanish larder.

Pulpo á feira is the national dish of Galicia and the backbone of restaurants like O Pulpeiro in Melide. In fine dining it was reimagined by Pepe Solla and by Ángel León of Aponiente, the three-star 'Chef of the Sea', whose work made Spain's preserved seafood a serious tasting-menu subject rather than a bar snack.

How we make it

We freeze and thaw rather than beat the octopus on rocks. Ice crystals rupture the muscle fibres exactly as a beating does, but evenly, and without bruising the flesh into greyness.

The oil is bloomed, not stirred: pimentón is added to warm — never hot — oil off the flame. Above about 80°C the paprika scorches and turns acrid within seconds, which is why so much commercial pimentón oil tastes bitter.