Erica De Mane

Recipe below: Bucatini with Octopus, Vermouth, and Basil

Lately I’ve been loitering around Eataly on 23rd Street. It tricks me into feeling I’ve travelled somewhere, maybe Florence, somewhere with big food shops filled with great Italian stuff. Eataly can be difficult, with its crowds and complicated floor plan, but there’s no denying it’s got some great Italian products. I don’t buy there all the time, but occasionally I do. Sometimes its pricing is just too bizarre, though. I recently intended to purchase a small head of puntarella, a type of chicory, but found, to my amazement when I brought it to the counter, that the tiny head of lettuce would have cost me $28.  Living in New York, I’m usually not shocked by food prices, but this was crazy, don’t you think?  However, some things there are reasonable. Cheeses, for instance. I was surprised to find a caciocavallo from Irpinia in Campania, a place not far from my ancestral village of Castelfranco in Miscano. Both localities are famous for this cow’s milk (or occasionally sheep’s milk) cheese, but Irpinia finally found a way to export it, and I’m grateful that Eataly stocks it.

Eataly also has an interesting seafood department, reliably carrying hard to find things such as fresh anchovies and head-on scampi, the kind I like to stuff, and a good selection of whole fish (not just farmed branzino). On my last visit I saw octopus tentacles as thick as I’d ever seen in my life and of such gelatinous repulsiveness that I had to buy a few. Two of the monsters were enough for dinner for four. (They were sold detached from the head. I wonder how big that head would have been.)

There are several ways to cook big octopus. First off, most people buy whole ones that have been previously frozen, since that tenderizes them, which means you don’t have to spend time slamming them against a rock. They’re also cleaned, meaning the head has been emptied out, which cuts down on kitchen trauma. Most recipes ask you to first blanch your octopus in boiling water for as long as it takes to make it tender. That can be an hour or longer, depending on what you’re dealing with. And then there’s another way, more of an Italian granny way, which is to just stick it in a pot with no liquid at all, cover it, and sort of steam heat it into submission. Also I had a friend whose mother used to just sit an octopus up on a sheet pan and heat it in the oven until it softened up. Very strange to witness, but it did work. Sort of like baking a potato.

My method is a hybrid way. I put the octopus in a pot, pour on a little vermouth or wine, add aromatics (garlic, hot chile, onion, celery, bay leaf, herbs, depending), cover it, and then let it steam braise. This tenderizes it nicely and has the added benefit of gently seasoning it throughout.

I know a lot of people are kind of grossed out by the thought of cooking an octopus, but this recipe is a lot easier than you might think, and the resulting sauce is sensational. I hope you’ll give it a try.

Bucatini with Octopus, Vermouth, and Basil

(Serves 4)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 sweet onion, like Vidalia, cut into medium dice
1 carrot, cut into medium dice
1 celery stalk, plus the leaves from about 3 stalks, cut into medium dice, the leaves lightly chopped
2 fresh bay leaves
5 or 6 large sprigs fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
1 small fresh red chili pepper, cut in half lengthwise (seeded, if you like less heat)
1 medium-large octopus, previously cleaned and frozen
1 cup dry vermouth
1 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes, lightly drained and well chopped
Salt
A handful of fresh basil leaves, lightly chopped
1 pound bucatini

Get out a large stove-top casserole with a cover (I used a Le Creuset oval pot). Add a big drizzle of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery plus its leaves, bay leaves, thyme, garlic cloves, and chili. Let it all sauté for 2 or 3 minutes so it can become fragrant. Add the octopus, turning it over a few times to coat it in the oil and aromatics. I don’t add salt here since often the broth the octopus lets off is somewhat salty, and also extra salt can toughen it.

After the octopus has warmed through in the oil for a few minutes, add the vermouth, and let it bubble. Cover the dish, turn the heat down to really low, and let it simmer until the octopus is tender. This can take a while, in my experience at least an hour. My octopus, this time, was thick so it took even longer. Just test it every so often by poking it with a thin knife. If you get any rubbery resistance, it’s not done yet. You’ll also want to turn the octopus over a few times during cooking, to make sure it simmers evenly.

After a bit, it should start smelling pretty good. That is a sign you’re getting there. Test again. When a skinny knife goes through easily, it’s ready. Turn off the flame, and lift the octopus from the pot onto a cutting board, preferably one with a juice-catching moat, like you’d use for a steak.

Check to see how much broth you have in the pot. If you’ve got too much, the resulting sauce will be too liquidy. If you have more than 2 cups, take some out and save it for some other use. (I froze some of mine. It makes a great addition to a fish stew, for instance. I could have boiled it down, but it was very intense already and I didn’t want it to become too salty. This is a judgement call.)

After you get your broth level right, let the octopus cool enough so you can handle it.

While it’s cooling, add the tomatoes to the pot and simmer them, uncovered, on medium heat for about 15 minutes.

What I do now is cut the tentacles (legs actually) at the base of the head (I didn’t have the head this time around; if you have it you can slice it up and add it to the sauce, but I find its texture often dry, so I usually discard it). I then pull some of the soft skin off the tentacles. It slips right off. I don’t remove all of it, just some of it, and leave the suckers on. The soft skin does add some flavor, but the texture is a little weird, so I just remove part of it. But that’s up to you. Next cut the tentacles into approximately ½-inch pieces.

Return the octopus pieces and any juice they have given off back to the pot. Simmer about 10 minutes longer, just to let all the flavors come together. Taste the sauce to see if it needs salt. Mine usually needs a little, but that depends on how much exudes from the octopus. Add the basil. You can also add a drizzle of fresh olive her if you like. Can’t hurt.

Now you’re ready to cook your bucatini perfectly al dente and toss it with the octopus sauce. I’m not always particularly strict about the no-cheese-with-seafood “rule,” but in this dish I feel that cheese will conflict with the delicate taste of the sauce, so I leave it out. 

You can also present the sauce, without pasta, just in bowls, possibly with a cup or so of cooked ceci thrown in, alongside garlic-rubbed bruschetta slices to dunk in it. Either way, it’s a good thing.