Octopus Risotto

Rob Sama has been pesking me to cook octopus with him. We were finally able to get together this Saturday to cook the octopus using a Mediterranean recipe that my Spanish grandfather often used. The result is that you get a yummy, fairly easy recipe AND a bonus picture of Sama and the elusive Viking Zen!

Ok. WHERE can you find octopus? If you live in the Boston area, you can call Rob and tell him to go buy octopus at the Super 88 in Brighton. It's a Chinese market and you can purchase previously cleaned and frozen octopus for the low low price of $10ish bucks.

NEXT

You've gotta rinse the octopus and then you've gotta tenderize it. We didn't have a mallet to tenderize it, so Sama used a large can to do the deed.

Okay- here are your ingredients:

PANTRY RAID

2 lbs of octopus
6 tbsp of olive oil
1 sage leaf
1 parsley sprig
400 grams of arborio rice (risotto grade)
red wine (good stuff, please)
salt
pepper
3 onions (large)
garlic
sausage (two large)- we used sweet Italian sausages for this.

TANTALIZING TENTACLES!

You've tenderized your octopus...Now, you've got to get a large pot of water boiling. You're going to fill it up with one chopped onion, some salt, pepper, and once it's boiling, put your l'il buddy in there. You can put up to a cup of red wine in that water.

You're going to let it boil for approximately an hour. The meat should become pretty tender.

While that is happening, fry the sausages in some butter. I chopped ours before, because I wanted less fat and wanted a "rugged texture", similar to meatballs.

While the octupus is still boiling, you get a saucepan and cook two onions and garlic (to taste). Once the onions are transparent, add the sage leaf and the parsley sprig. Add the sausage pieces.

After the hour is up, remove the octopus from the broth that's formed in the pot. Chop it up into inch-long pieces. Keep the broth- you're going to need it to cook the rice. Put the onion-olive oil- garlic mix into another pot and do the following measurements= 2 cups of the octopus water per cup of arborio rice. Watch the rice boil- make sure it stays pretty moist- arborio absorbs a lot of water. You may have to add some water during the cooking process.

Once the rice is fully cooked, add the octopus pieces. Mix it all up.

Serve in a nice dish and enjoy in good company!

Sama and VikingZen