I prefer to cook it as a slow braise in a tagine pot which cooks it perfectly and retains all of the moisture so often lost during slow cooking. Chorizo sausage and its main spice ingredient, paprika, work beautifully with octopus and I like to add a few capers and some mashed anchovy into the sauce to give a healthy piquant kick to the dish.

The beauty of this dish is that there are no hard and fast measurements and timings, add as much or as little as you like to suit your taste.

Take a large, wide saucepan and cover the surface with plenty of olive oil. Gently sweat a chopped onion and a couple of cloves of chopped garlic without colouring before adding the pieces of octopus. Season generously with freshly ground salt and pepper. Add a teaspoon of tomato puree followed by the herbs of your choice, a couple of salted anchovy fillets and a sprinkling of capers. Add a cup of good red wine, a couple of torn bay leaves and some slices of chorizo sausage. Pour over a cup of chopped tomatoes and hot fish stock to cover. Cover and cook gently for two and a half to three hours, check the seasoning and finish with some fresh lemon juice.