Octopus salad from Mount Athos
Another special recipe from Mount Athos. Mediterranean salad with octopus, olives and capers that smells of the sea. Ideal side dish or main course for the weekends during the Lenten fast when olive oil consumption is allowed. Try this monastic recipe and you will easily have a hearty and delicious octopus salad.
We clean and wash the octopus well, we removing the mouth and eyes. We also clean the hood.
We pot the octopus in a pot with the hood up and boil it in its juices without adding water.
We boil it for about 1 hour or until soft. If the octopus is too big, we may need to add a little water.
Once the octopus has cooled, we cut it into thin slices and put it in a large salad bowl.
We chop the onion into small cubes and add it to the bowl.
We cut the cherry tomatoes in half and put them in the bowl.
Then, we add the olives, capers, parsley and season with salt and pepper.
We mix the olive oil with vinegar in a bowl and pour over the salad.
We mix the salad well and put it in the fridge.
After a few hours we can serve.
We can be flexible in the choice of materials. We can add boiled potatoes, peppers, lettuce, pickled cucumber, depending on our taste and seasonality.
We don't add any salt when boiling the octopus because it will harden.
The longer the salad stays in the fridge, the tastier it will become because the octopus will marinate in the juices of the salad. So if we want to leave the salad for a day to marinate, then it would be better to add the cherry tomatoes just before serving.
We can make our salad lemonade instead of vinegar, depending on our taste.
