Boiled octopus cut into rounds with scissors, dressed with olive oil, pimentón and coarse salt, on a wooden plate.
What makes it pulpo a la gallega
Octopus tenderised — once beaten, now usually frozen — then boiled.
Cut with scissors onto a wooden plate.
Olive oil, sweet and hot pimentón, coarse salt; boiled potatoes, cachelos, alongside.
Where it comes from
It's fair food — á feira means 'fair-style' — made by pulpeiras who boil octopus in big copper pots at markets and festivals across Galicia. Some of the best-known are inland, far from the sea, and the town of O Carballiño holds a festival for it.
The octopus is dipped in and out of the boiling water a few times before it goes in, to curl the tentacles and, cooks say, keep the skin on.