Squid Salad or Octopus Salad - Japanese Style

You could either use squid or octopus for this salad, I have trouble finding octopus most times so I used squid. I normally buy my squid/octopus already cleaned and gutted. If your squid/octopus needs to be clean then remove the guts (discard) and legs from the body and rinse. Cut off the tips on the legs and discard, then chop the remaining leg pieces and body into bite-size chunks. Original recipe comes from ‘Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking’ by Harumi Kurihara but I have twinkled with it

• Ready In: 30 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• Salad

•  mixed salad green, to taste
• 700  g squid or 700  g  baby octopus, fresh
•  salt, to taste
•  pepper, to taste
• 2  tablespoons olive oil
• 1  garlic clove, crushed
• 1  pinch chili powder, to taste (shichimi togarashi)

• Dressing

• 3  tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 1  tablespoon  freshly grated gingerroot
• 1⁄2 teaspoon caster sugar (to taste, you could add more or less)

Directions

1. Wash, pat dry and cut salad leaves into bite-size pieces, then arrange the salad leaves into serving dish. Set aside.
2. For the squid/octopus cut the body and legs into 1.5 cm thick then season with salt and pepper.
3. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the garlic and fry until you can smell its aroma.
4. Add the squid/octopus into the pan with the garlic and cook until done. Squid/octopus' colour will change and it will no longer be transparent, Please NOTE do not overcook as it will becomes tough.
5. Remove from heat and place on top of the prepared salad leaves in serving dish.
6. Return frying pan to the heat, add the soy sauce, ginger, sugar and mix well with any remaining cooking juices from the squid/octopus, making sure that all the sugar dissolves.
7. Pour dressing on top of squid/octopus then sprinkle some chilli powder or shichimi togarashi.
8. If there is a lot of dressing you could serve it separately and dinners could help themselves if they wish for more dressing.
9. Enjoy.