Octopus in tomato sauce and pasta

During my last visit to Greece, I went a couple of times to a supermarket to get some type of prepared food for dinner. I had a choice between souvlaki and supermarket food and trust me, the latter was the best choice. The quality of the food was excellent and it was fresh since the ingredients came from the supermarket. Twice, I had a traditional dish of octopus with pasta cooked in tomato sauce. Eating octopus is very common. I remember eating grilled octopus when I was a little kid and I still salivate thinking about it. I got to talk to the person that maintained the hot food counter and he gave me his recipe which turned out to be simple.

I went to ShopRite, our local supermarket, to buy octopus, frozen, of course, and I was told that they carry larger octopus only during the holidays. I failed to ask which holidays but I will ask this question next time. Here are the three small frozen octopi that I purchased.

I removed the octopi from the package and washed it under running water. I cut the tentacles in bite sized pieces and I cut the ink sack in half and washed the inside of it well, even though it appeared to be very clean.

I started to warm up a pan on med-high heat.

I warmed up 3/4 cups of olive oil. By the way, a local super marked is closing and they had everything at 50% off. I loaded up on olive oil and I have enough olive oil to paint three houses with it.

I grabbed (I hope my regular readers appreciate the usage of the word "grab") a large sweet onion. Take a moment and see how I cut it with my sharp knife. I made two horizontal cuts and then made several perpendicular cuts in order to mince the onion. Beautiful!

Saute the onion in the pan in the hot oil and add the octopus. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the octopus in the pan with the onion. Cook onions and octopus in the hot oil for five minutes.

Add one cup of your favorite white wine and continue to cook for another five minutes.

 

Added 1/2 a cup of tomato paste.

 

  

 One teaspoon of basil and pepper.  You may want to add salt here too but I didn't because of my high blood pressure.

Here is the octopus getting cozy with the rest of the ingredients. Keep it at a low boil for 30 minutes.

I set the oven timer but I will not forget it because the last eight minutes I will add the pasta. Every five minutes give it a stir.

Here is the timer at eight minutes. Time to add the pasta.

Normally Greeks add a different type of past but I will use egg noodles today.

After adding the noodles I gave the whole thing a stir every minute or so to make sure the pasta didn't stick together.

The last minute I added parsley. As you can see I keep the parsley in the refrigerator in a tall glass filled half way with water. This way it will stay fresh longer. Below you can see that I took a small portion of parsley. I also cover the parsley with a plastic bag to keep the moisture from evaporating.

Here is the parsley ready to be chopped.

This is the final image showing all ingredients and almost ready to be eaten.

Here is a small bowl of octopus with pasta in tomato sauce. Of course a nice piece of challah bread goes very well with it.

I love this dish and, like I said before, since I am the only one who likes it...I consider myself very lucky.

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