Baby octopus salad

[Bob]

2 pounds baby octopus (each about 7 to 9 inches long)
3 bay leaves (laurel)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 orange sweet pepper
1 small Vidalia onion (or other sweet onion)
smoked paprika (about two teaspoons), bittersweet is good
Spanish balsamic-style vinegar
virgin olive oil
sea salt

Clean the baby octopus. Just cut in back of the eyes to free the body, and again in front of the eyes to elimnate the beak and free the tentacles as a unit. Discard the head. Turn the body inside out and remove all of the internal organs and discard them.

Simmer the baby octopus bodies and tentacles very gently in water with bay leaves for about 1.5 hours. Do not allow it to boil or it will toughen. Rinse in cold water to cool.

Slice the onion and pepper. Mix with one clove of finely chopped garlic, and olive oil and vinegar to taste. Add smoked parika and sea salt to taste.

Grill the octopus over high heat about 30 seconds on each side. Add the grilled octopus and toss the ingredients together. Serve at room temperature with crusty bread.

[Eli]

Looks pretty good. There is no chance that I can do this, but... I sent the recipe to my sister in law, maybe she decide to try her hand at it...

[Maestro Tomberi]

It looks to a quite fine recipe to me, done quite to our classic way. I suggest you to freeze the legs in order to crush the hard nerves and let the meat have a better texture. Therefore, the cooking time may be lesser.

Besides the recipee, I've got to point the fact of getting baby octopuses here would be quite problematic, since there is a politic of respecting the minimal sizes of captures... I think it must not be lesser than 500 grs per octopus (maybe more).

It's illegal to get octopuses of lesser size/weight and fines can raise up to 3000 €. Nowadays authorities control it a lot and patrols surrounding the fishing area are done quite often.