As many recipes of Ligurian cuisine, octopus and potatoes is very simple and quick to prepare. To have a perfect dish you have to respect the cooking time and use a very good Ligurian extra-virgin olive oil and Taggiasca high quality olives. Moreover, if you prepare it for a picnic or an excursion, it is a perfect cold dish you can easily prepare the previous afternoon and keep in a glass can.

Octopus and potatoes Genoese-style

Ingredients for 6 people:

• 1 kg octopus
• 2 garlic cloves (optional)
• a lot of parsley
• Taggiasca olives
• lemon juice
• salt
• 4 or 5 potatoes

Preparation:

First of all we give you an advice: to make the octopus tenderer, put it some hours in the freezer or buy it already frozen. Defrost it before cooking.

Wash the octopus and put it in a pressure cooker for 30-40 minutes with few water: the octopus releases a lot of water and cooks in its own liquid. It has to cool down in its own water, too.

As it is cold, clean it (as you like: some children love suckers, others hate them) and cut it into pieces.

In the meanwhile boil the potatoes and then let them cool down and cut them into pieces, too. Do not cook them too long: they must not become a mush!

Then mix octopus, potatoes, minced garlic and parsley, Taggiasca olives and a dressing made by oil, salt and lemon juice. Let the salad stay for 30 minutes before serving, so that the flavours mix and blend.

It is a perfect dish also for the beach: it is perfect, light and fresh! It is also our ideal packed lunch at work, when we want to take a bit of Ligurian Sea on our desks!