Chef Isabel
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Culinary Explorer
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Pulpo Encebollado Gallego
Created by
Galicia turns octopus into proper spoon-and-bread food here, folding tender pieces through onions cooked dark gold with garlic, pimentón, and white wine, then laying the lot over potatoes.
Main Dishes
Spanish
Comfort Food
One Pot
Make Ahead
25 min
Active Time
2 hr 20 min cook•2 hr 45 min total
Yield4 generous servings
Pulpo encebollado gallego is Galicia's octopus for the home pot: tender pieces folded into a deep bed of cebolla pochada, onion softened slowly, with garlic, pimentón, and dry white wine. Potatoes underneath catch the reddish, sweet-savoury sauce. That onion base makes this dish, not the clean oil, salt, and pimentón finish of polbo á feira.
The method that decides it is the onion. Cook it low until it collapses, loses its raw bite, and turns dark gold and almost jammy before the wine goes anywhere near the pot. That slow cooking draws out its sweetness and gives the sauce body. Add the liquid while the onion is still pale and the whole thing tastes thin. I cook the octopus first, then use its liquor for the potatoes and the sauce, so none of its sea flavour is wasted.
Far from Galicia, frozen cleaned octopus is exactly what you want because freezing tenderises the flesh. If you can find only vacuum-packed cooked tentacles, use them and add them for the final five minutes; the dish will have a little less depth because you won't have the cooking liquor, but the onion base still carries it. My margin beside this one says, "the wine waits for the onion." Follow that and it behaves. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.
Along Galicia's rías, octopus entered coastal pots fresh, while dried octopus travelled inland to fairs where pulpeiras made the better-known polbo á feira with oil, salt, and pimentón. Pulpo encebollado belongs to the household pot: a generous weight of onion stretches the octopus and turns its cooking liquor into sauce, with potatoes ready to carry it. At Mugardos on the Ría de Ferrol, the related pulpo a la mugardesa includes pepper and potato in a looser stew; this onion-heavy braise is its own preparation.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
whole cleaned octopus
Quantity
1.5kg
previously frozen and thawed in the refrigerator
water
Quantity
3.5L
plus more if needed to cover
small waxy potatoes
Quantity
800g
scrubbed
yellow onions
Quantity
900g (about 5 large)
halved and thinly sliced
extra virgin olive oil
Quantity
75ml
divided
garlic
Quantity
3 cloves
thinly sliced
bay leaf
Quantity
1
sweet pimentón de la Vera
Quantity
5g
hot pimentón de la Vera (optional)
Quantity
0.5g
dry Galician white wine, such as Ribeiro or Albariño
Quantity
150ml
octopus cooking liquid
Quantity
200ml
reserved from the pot
fine sea salt
Quantity
6g, plus more only if needed
divided
rustic bread (optional)
Quantity
as needed
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole cleaned octopuspreviously frozen and thawed in the refrigerator | 1.5kg |
| waterplus more if needed to cover | 3.5L |
| small waxy potatoesscrubbed | 800g |
| yellow onionshalved and thinly sliced | 900g (about 5 large) |
| extra virgin olive oildivided | 75ml |
| garlicthinly sliced | 3 cloves |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| sweet pimentón de la Vera | 5g |
| hot pimentón de la Vera (optional) | 0.5g |
| dry Galician white wine, such as Ribeiro or Albariño | 150ml |
| octopus cooking liquidreserved from the pot | 200ml |
| fine sea saltdivided | 6g, plus more only if needed |
| rustic bread (optional)for serving | as needed |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide heavy casserole or Dutch oven, 6 to 8 litres
- •Kitchen scissors
- •Skewer or thin paring knife
- •Slotted spoon
- •Measuring jug
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the octopus
Check that the thawed octopus is clean inside the head and remove the hard beak from the centre of the tentacles if your fishmonger has left it in. Rinse briefly under cold water. Bring 3.5 litres of water to a full boil in a wide, heavy pot, leaving enough room for the octopus.
Thaw the octopus slowly in the refrigerator, set in a dish to catch the liquid. Don't thaw it in warm water; the thin ends begin to soften before the thick tentacles have thawed. - 2
Scare and simmer
Hold the octopus by the head and lower the tentacles into the boiling water for five seconds, then lift them out. Repeat twice more. This is asustar el pulpo, to scare the octopus, and it helps the skin stay on and the tentacles curl neatly. Lower in the whole octopus, return the water to a gentle simmer, and cook for 35 to 45 minutes. Test the thickest part of a tentacle with a skewer; it should enter with slight resistance, like a cooked potato, not slide through mush.
Keep the water at an easy simmer. A hard boil knocks the skin loose and makes the thin tentacle ends ragged. - 3
Cook the potatoes
Lift the octopus into a bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes. Put the whole potatoes into the same cooking water and simmer for 18 to 25 minutes, depending on their size, until a skewer reaches the centre without force. Reserve 200ml of the cooking liquid, then drain the potatoes. Peel them while warm, slice them into 1cm rounds, and season with 2g of the salt.
- 4
Poch the onions
Empty and dry the same pot. Add 60ml of the olive oil, the sliced onions, bay leaf, and the remaining 4g salt. Cook over low heat for 35 to 45 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until the onions have collapsed into soft ribbons and turned a deep, even gold. They should be jammy, not crisp. If they begin catching before they soften, add one tablespoon of water and lower the heat. This is the step that decides the dish, so don't hurry it.
- 5
Build the sauce
Add the sliced garlic and cook for 2 minutes, just until fragrant. Take the pot off the heat for 30 seconds, add both pimentones, and stir through the oil. Pimentón scorches quickly and turns bitter, which is why the pot leaves the heat. Pour in the wine at once, return the pot to medium heat, and simmer for about 5 minutes, until reduced by half. Add the reserved octopus liquid and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until the sauce lightly coats a spoon.
- 6
Finish the octopus
Cut the tentacles into pieces 2 to 3cm thick with kitchen scissors and cut the head into bite-sized strips. Fold the octopus through the onion sauce and cook gently for 6 to 8 minutes, just long enough for it to take on the wine and pimentón. Don't boil it hard or keep it there half an hour; it is already tender. Taste before adding any more salt because the cooking liquid carries the sea with it.
If using 900g vacuum-packed cooked octopus tentacles, replace the reserved liquor with 200ml water or unsalted fish stock and add the octopus for only the final 5 minutes. - 7
Rest and serve
Arrange the potato rounds in a warm shallow serving dish. Spoon over the octopus and plenty of the dark-gold onions, letting the pimentón-stained sauce run between the potatoes. Rest for 5 minutes, then finish with the remaining 15ml olive oil. Put bread beside it because leaving that sauce behind would be foolish.
Chef Tips
- •Buy octopus frozen or previously frozen. Freezing breaks down the firm muscle fibres and gives a more dependable tenderness than a never-frozen octopus. Look for one weighing between 1.3kg and 1.7kg so the cooking time remains useful.
- •Vacuum-packed cooked tentacles are a sensible substitute and are used in plenty of Galician homes when time is short. Use 900g, add them only at the end, and replace the octopus liquor with water or unsalted fish stock. The sauce will taste a little less of the sea.
- •Pésalo, no lo adivines. Nine hundred grams of onion looks excessive when raw, then cooks down to the amount the dish needs. Halving it doesn't make a lighter pulpo encebollado; it makes octopus with a few onions.
- •Use a dry Ribeiro or Albariño, never sweet wine and never salted cooking wine. The same bottle can go on the table, cold but not numbing, where its acidity cuts through the sweet onions and olive oil.
Advance Preparation
- •Thaw the frozen octopus in the refrigerator for 24 to 36 hours, set over a rimmed dish. This thawing time is not included in the recipe timing.
- •The octopus and potatoes can be cooked one day ahead. Refrigerate the octopus with 200ml of its cooking liquid in a covered container, and keep the potatoes separately so they don't become waterlogged.
- •The finished dish keeps for up to two days in the refrigerator. Reheat it covered over low heat with one or two tablespoons of water, just until the octopus is warm; repeated boiling makes it tough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 650g)
Calories
720 calories
Total Fat
22 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
16 g
Cholesterol
180 mg
Sodium
1400 mg
Total Carbohydrates
67 g
Dietary Fiber
9 g
Sugars
11 g
Protein
63 g
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