I hope you're all doing great ❤️

I've been blogging more lately, and I like it; among other things, one learns to see opportunities in simple things, those that have been invisible so far. For example, many interesting things can come out of cooking with leftovers, like this warm octopus and broccoli salad with sauteed red onion and yellow bell pepper, and fresh tomato, on a bed of mashed avocado, which we put on thin and crunchy arepas and topped with a delicious mango sauce and garlic flakes fried in coconut oil. The whole set worked excellently. I'll show you 😋

I had broccoli from yesterday's soup and some frozen octopus left over from bruschette from a couple of weeks ago. I thought that I would make salad with that, but I had to give it an interesting twist. Mangoes came to my mind, as we have plenty; our tree is loaded.

As an amateur cook, I'm always happy when I discover a dish that I'll undoubtedly repeat not only because it's delicious, but healthy and versatile.

This salad is beautiful on its own because the ingredients are so colorful, plus a little twist here and there with the garlic flakes fried in coconut oil and the tropical sweet and tangy mango dressing, the dish takes off and becomes one of those that you would serve without hesitation at a dinner party--arepas included, yes, sir.

You won't find a recipe for arepas here, but you can follow the instructions on the package or go to this post where I've shared some recipes for arepas. These were very thin, but not as thin as taco tortillas. We Venezuelans are used to making arepas thick enough to open lengthwise and fill them. With these you can't do that. Instead, you put the filling on top.

...Or, or, you can just eat your salad alone, with a fork. That'd be just as nice ❤️

Let's Get to Work!

First, I made the mango sauce.

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe mangoes (fully ripe)
• 1/2 cup orange and lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup cane honey
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil

I used the juice I had from making muffins. It had the juice. I had made a cup of orange juice to which I added 3 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Having all the ingredients, the first thing was getting the mango colada. I squeezed the mangoes with my hands like you see in the GIF below. I caught it with the knife blade to keep it from slipping out of my hand and flying away, haha. That happens.

I got all the juice I could.

Then I added the juice (orange and lemon).

I cooked the sauce over medium heat and added the salt and cane honey. I let it cook for 5 minutes while stirring constantly to prevent it from sticking to the bottom.

When it had the desired consistency, I removed the pot from the fire and added the coconut oil.

After it cooled, I transferred it to a piping bottle and kept it in the fridge until needed.

The Salad!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup yellow bell pepper, julienned
• 1/2 cup red onion, julienned
• enough olive oil to sautee
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 2 cups boiled and frozen octopus
• 2 cups raw broccoli florets
• 1 cup fresh tomato, diced (unpeeled, no seeds)
• 2 tablespoons freshly crushed garlic
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil to fry the crushed garlic
• 2 cups fresh avocado, mashed
• enough lemon juice to drizzle on the avocado (to prevent browning)
• salt to taste

To make the salad,

I sauteed the onion and yellow bell pepper first. I used olive oil and sesame seeds to give them the desired flavor and aroma.

While the onion and pepper were cooking, I chopped the broccoli florets and octopus so they would be a good size for salad.

I added them in the hot wok.

Then I added salt and stirred a little, and that was it. The octopus and broccoli cooked for 1 minute over medium to high fire.

I transferred it to the salad bowl while still hot...

...and added the fresh diced tomato. While the tomato was getting some the heat, I started making the mashed avocado and garlic flakes.

I squeezed half a lemon on the avocado flesh to prevent oxidation (browning). I didn't add any salt because it makes it lose water.

The garlic flakes were done in a minute. I fried them in coconut oil.

I had everything ready to start assembling the salad. I used a large, oval, white ceramic plate, which I think is good to enhance the colors of the food. It measures 40x28 cm, so the salad had a lot of room for itself. First I made a bed with the mashed avocado and then, carefully, I placed the salad starting from the center.

I left a little mashed avocado to put here and there to help the salad hold together.

The salad was already fine, but the garlic flakes added something extra. Beautiful. Ah, and the aroma was just great.

Finally, mango sauce! I used the piping bottle I showed you before. I had thought about putting a lot of it on the salad, but I didn't want to ruin its gorgeous look, so I went for a minimalist style. Besides, the salad was festive enough already.

I served the rest of the sauce aside, plus some thin arepas.

Take a look!

Little by little, I am discovering the power of the mango to make something special out of an ordinary dish.

As always, I hope you have found this post useful 😁❤️

Bon appetite!

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

Thank you so much for your visit :)

Banner by @andresromero 🖤