Focaccia with Octopus & Potatoes

This is proper Italian dinner-party food - a crisp, golden focaccia base topped with tender octopus, sliced potato, and a bright rocket pesto. It looks spectacular and tastes even better. The octopus is cooked separately (buy it pre-cooked from your fishmonger to save an hour), so there's no food safety worry - everything that goes on the focaccia is already cooked. The pizza oven gives the base a char and crunch that a kitchen oven simply can't match.

Ingredients

• 300g pizza dough (see our Classic Neapolitan Pizza Dough)
• 300g cooked octopus, sliced (buy pre-cooked or boil your own for 45-60 minutes until tender)
• 2 medium potatoes, boiled until just tender, then sliced
• For the rocket pesto: 50g rocket, 20g pine nuts, 30g Parmesan, extra virgin olive oil, salt
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of half a lemon
• Salt and black pepper

Method

1. Drop your pizza oven to around 300°C for this one - focaccia needs a slightly lower heat than pizza.
2. Press the dough out onto a lightly oiled baking tray, stretching it to fill the tray. Dimple the surface with your fingers and drizzle generously with olive oil.
3. Slide into your oven and bake for 5-8 minutes until golden, puffed, and crisp on the base.
4. While the focaccia bakes, make the pesto: blitz the rocket, pine nuts, and Parmesan with enough olive oil to make a loose paste. Season with salt.
5. Toss the octopus and potato slices with the lemon juice, a splash of olive oil, salt, and pepper.
6. Spread the rocket pesto over the warm focaccia base. Arrange the octopus and potato on top.
7. Finish with a crack of black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve immediately.