Octopus risotto (From News Shopper)

Octopus risotto

2:44pm Monday 22nd June 2009

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After cooking my way through Annabel Karmel (several times) I thought I would get adventurous. My two year old, has had a healthy appetite from birth and it has never been a problem getting him to eat and little Megan loves Mummy’s fish pie. So feeling inspired by a long weekend in Lisbon with Mr Yummy (thank goodness for saintly in-laws/doting grandparents/willing babysitters) I decided to try my hand at Risotto de Polvo.

Some people probably wouldn’t dream of eating octopus, let alone feeding it to very young children. But it really is delicious and if you can get our hands on some cuttlefish ink sacks you can turn the rice black for dramatic effect (it looks incredibly stylish and doesn’t really alter the flavour). So I went online and ordered one and a half kilos of Portuguese octopus (£26.30 from The Fish Society) for delivery the following day.

First thing to do is boil the octopus which is a bit slippery when raw but firms up if you cook it in a pan half full of boiling water. Pop in an onion and cook on a rolling boil for ten minutes. Drain the water, but keep the onion and fill the pot again, cooking for another 25 minutes. If you can still see bits of purple skin after the first blanching, scrape them off. When the octopus has cooked and cooled, chop it into small chunks and set it aside. Keep the stock but throw away the onion.

To make the risotto, sauté some garlic in olive oil and add onions, cooking them until they are transparent. Add some diced tomatoes, tomato puree, a bay leaf, coriander, pepper, paprika and let the tomatoes cook into a sauce for about 10-15 minutes. Add pinch of sugar, to round out the acidity on the tomatoes, but not too much because it’s not good to overload your children’s food with too much sugar and salt. Add risotto rice and coat well with tomato sauce, then add half of the stock and gently stir. Add water or stock when the when rice begins to dry. Keep stirring the rice for extra creaminess and when the rice is tender add the octopus. For grownup versions of this recipe you might want to add salt and a glass of white wine.

I used my Cuisinart multistick to whiz it into a bit of a puree for Megan who was sitting on the floor behind me quietly eating cat food. She must have been shovelling it in for a while because she certainly wasn’t very hungry by the time I served the risotto and spat every mouthful into her pelican bib. Arthur pushed the rice around his plate a bit and flicked some of the octopus pieces onto the table didn’t actually manage to taste the food. There is no point forcing children to eat if they are not hungry because it just makes an issue of food, when it should be a pleasure.

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