Pulpo à la Gallega – Octopus with smoked Spanish paprika

Yulia: Octopus is definitely one of those dishes that makes my mouth water just thinking about it. For this dish, I use pre-cooked octopus tentacles. If you want to make the octopus yourself, use a 2-3 kg specimen. To cook it, I prepare a broth with onion, garlic, bay leaves, and (a little) salt. I add the octopus to the broth, weigh it down so it's covered with liquid, and let it cool until tender. Here, we're preparing it with potatoes and aioli. It uses two temperature zones.

➊ For the aioli, all ingredients should be fairly cold. Combine the oil, salt, garlic, lemon juice, and egg in the blender and slowly whisk everything up until it thickens. If the mixture curdles, simply add a tiny amount of crushed ice and whisk everything up again. The aioli should then thicken again.

➋ Heat the plancha to low heat and halve the potatoes lengthwise.

➌ Add a little olive oil to the plancha and spread the potatoes on it. Grill for 3–4 minutes without the cloche and without adding water to allow the roasting aromas to develop. Then add a little water and continue grilling under the cloche. Check occasionally to see if more water needs to be added. The potatoes will take about 20 minutes to cook. To test for doneness, pierce them with a toothpick: this is easy once they're cooked.

➍ Meanwhile, heat the second half of the plancha to high heat and, after about 12 minutes, begin cooking the octopus. Slice the tentacles. Drizzle a little olive oil on the plancha and grill the slices for 6–8 minutes, turning frequently, until the octopus develops a crispy aroma without becoming dry or burning. Remove from the plancha.

➎ First, arrange the potatoes on a platter, then arrange the octopus slices on top, season with pimentón and finish with sea salt flakes. Garnish with olive oil and aioli.