Cooked pulpo with mashed potatoes Portuguese style

Unfortunately, spring is still a long time coming, fueling our hope with bright rays of sunshine and laughing up our sleeves when we tie our scarves tighter around our necks. The nice thing about this hanging party is: we still feel like real comfort food and are not even off the track.

Today's recipe is a fusion of tender cooked pulpo from Spain with "batatas ao murro", a typical Portuguese preparation for bursting open potatoes, which are either beaten with a fist or traditionally thrown against the wall so that they burst. With such an opportunity to let off steam, the term comfort food takes on a second meaning...

The pulpo that I use for this recipe comes pre-cooked from Catalonia to us in Berlin - fresh once a week. Anyone who has ever tried to cook squid tenderly and failed will be very happy to know that this batch has already been taken from them. But you don't have to worry - in Portugal there is a real job for something like that: that of the pulpeiro, who spends the whole day doing nothing but cooking the pulpo until it's tender.

Ingredients:

• potatoes
• pulpo
• olive oil
• rosemary
• Salt and pepper or piment d'Espelette for the color
• Depending on your mood, a green salad as an accompaniment

Preparation:

1. Sprinkle the potatoes with their skins (clean them beforehand) with coarse salt and bake in the oven at 250 °C for about half an hour until they are done. After baking , hit the potatoes with your fist or the heel of your hand so that they burst. Alternatively, feel free to really throw them against the wall, of course... :)
2. Meanwhile, bring water to a boil in a saucepan. Remove the pot from the fire and warm up the pulpo in its packaging for about 15 minutes. This gentle way of heating allows the pulp to soak in its juice and does not dry out.
3. Arrange the potatoes on a plate, slice the pulpo and add it. Sprinkle both with salt and Piment d'Espelette. Serve with a green salad if desired.

Our wine recommendation: