Htapodi Me Makaronaki Kofto (stewed Octopus With Macaroni)

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 4
• 2 lbs octopus, thawed if frozen
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cinnamon stick (or 1/2 tsp ground)
• 3 cups diced fresh tomatoes or 3 cups canned tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 lb elbow macaroni, cooked until still quite al dente (3-4 minutes before you'd normally drain it) or 1/2 lb similar type like ziti pasta or 1/2 lb penne
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter

Recipe

• 1 rinse the octopus under cold, running water and place in pot dripping wet (you don't want to dry it off - this is the moisture it will cook in).
• 2 add the red wine, garlic, onion, bay leaf and cinnamon and cover the pot.
• 3 bring to the boil over low heat.
• 4 it is tender when pierced easily with a fork (this can vary from octopus to octopus, so time is not a good indicator of doneness in this case).
• 5 remove the octopus and let cool until cool enough to handle and cut into bite-size pieces.
• 6 meanwhile, in pot you have cooked the octopus in, add tomatoes and olive oil. boil for 8-10 minutes to bind the sauce.
• 7 stir in the cut octopus and nearly-cooked macaroni and simmer for the remaining 3-4 minutes required to cook your macaroni (if mixture appears too dry, add some of the pasta cooking water - you want this quite 'moist' but not soupy).
• 8 stir in butter. remove bay leaf and cinnamon stick.
• 9 note: i use digitali pasta for this, but i can't get it into the ingredient list with the new zaar format.
• 10 bon appetit.