Unfortunately, spring is still a long way off, stoking our hopes with bright rays of sunshine and laughing up our sleeves as we tie our scarves tighter around our necks once again. The nice thing about this stalemate is that we're still craving real comfort food, and we're not even half off track.
Our recipe today is a fusion of tender, cooked octopus from Spain with "batatas ao murro," a typical Portuguese way of preparing popped potatoes, which are either battered with a fist or traditionally thrown against a wall to burst. With such a chance to let off steam, the term "comfort food" takes on a second meaning...
The octopus I use for this recipe comes pre-cooked from Catalonia to us in Berlin – and it's freshly cooked once a week. Anyone who's ever tried to cook a squid tenderly and failed will be delighted to know that this batch has already been taken care of for them. But don't worry – in Portugal, there's a proper job for this: that of the pulpeiro, who spends all day doing nothing but cooking the octopus tenderly.
Ingredients:
- potatoes
- Octopus
- olive oil
- rosemary
- Salt and pepper or Piment d'Espelette for color
- Depending on your mood, a green salad as an accompaniment
Preparation:
- Sprinkle the peeled potatoes (clean them first) with coarse salt and bake them in the oven at 250°C for about half an hour until cooked through. After baking, hit the potatoes with your fist or the heel of your hand until they burst. Alternatively, you can actually throw them against the wall... :)
- Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil. Remove the pot from the heat and heat the octopus in its packaging for about 15 minutes. This gentle heating allows the octopus to soak in its juices and prevent it from drying out.
- Arrange the potatoes on a plate, slice the octopus, and add them. Sprinkle both with salt and Espelette pepper. Serve with a green salad, if desired.
Our wine recommendation:
