Octopus & onion braise
Οχταπόδι Στιφάδο
……Ohtapódi stifátho
There’s a whole bunch of you recently who have packed your bags & jumped onto a plane, destined for warm Aegean waters & sun….
I instead have dived into my cookbooks, pouring over pictures of long lunches devoured under bougainvilleas, dreaming of endless walks through olive groves, gorging on sun worshipping stone fruit…mosquitoes & sunburn….peak season airport queues & luggage delays,……
Well I figured, it’s not so bad down under…..especially if you can get your hands on a few nice, big fat juicy legs of an octopus and pour some mediterranean sunshine into your kitchen with this heavenly & soul warming braise (minus the sunburn)…..
1 octopus (about 1 to 1.5kg)
1 kg small onions or shallots, peeled and left whole
1 whole head of garlic, cloves roughly chopped
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 Tblspn red wine vinegar
1 glass dry red wine
3 Tblspn tomato paste
5-6 whole allspice berries
a few bay leaves
1 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper
2 Tblspn sugar
Find a man called Spiros Mitsopoulos with a speargun and take him to a Halkithiki beach with clear blue waters and rocky ledges where ohtapothi like to hide.
After three swigs of tsipouro and by the time you say “Opa”, he’ll appear with an ohtapothi on his spear…
Ask him to pull out the stomach, ink sack and the beak.
He must then throw the ohtapothi against the rocks 40 times and then rub it against them to tenderize it.
He’ll know how to do this with his eyes closed or his name isn’t Spiros Mitsopoulos!
If you can’t find Spiro, get your spunky fishermonger to clean the head, stomach, ink sac and beak for you.
Place the whole octopus in a pot with enough boiling water to cover and bring to simmer.
Cook for 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and drain.
When cool enough to handle, rub the octopus with your hands under running water to remove the dark outer membrane. This can also be done ‘Japanese style’ with a clean stainless scourer.This membrane comes off fairly easily, but don’t stress too much if it doesn’t all come off.
Cut octopus into approx 1 inch chunks.
In a large pot, heat up olive oil and saute onions with sugar until golden.
Add octopus chunks, and cook for a further 5 mins, stirring frequently.
Add tomato paste and stir.
Cut tomato into chunks over pot and stir.
Add garlic, allspice berries, bay, salt & pepper and stir.
Add wine and vinegar.
Cover and cook for 35-45 mins or until octopus is really tender and sauce has reduced.
Serve to Spiro with lots of bread to mop up juices and more tsipouro!
nb. Octopus shrinks during cooking, so be prepared to see less of what you started with by dinner time.
Comment by Peter (not the oracle octopus) — July 8, 2010 @ 12:45 pm
….el pulpo, el pulpo….Paul ‘the oracle’ octopus…..who will it be???……(then when you’re done, you’ll make a tasty stifatho, indeed!)……Spain vs Netherlands, World Cup Fever, 2010