Paccheri Con Ragu Di Polpo By Isabel Lederman

Here’s to treating yourself with quality ingredients and easy recipes.

Ingredients:

1 tin of Ekone wild octopus
56g of miez paccheri
1 tin 800g of pomodoro san marzano tomatoes
5 black oil cured olives
5 springs of parsley
1 carrot
1 celery
1/2 white onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp of tomato paste diluted in water
1 tbsp of red wine vinegar
1 tsp of colatura di alice
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste (salt for boiling pasta)

Method:
1. Finely dice the carrot, celery, onion, and oil cured olives.
2. Finely mince the parsley and reserve the stems.
3. With your hands, crush the san marzano tomatoes into a bowl.
4. In a small sauce pan, heat up olive oil on low heat and add in the garlic cloves whole and the parsley stems. Let this cook for 5 minutes and remove the garlic and stems.
5. Add in the carrots, onion, celery, and olives. Let this cook for 10 minutes stirring periodically.
6. Add in the red wine vinegar and let this cook for 3 minutes.
7. Add in the tomatoes, colatura di alice, half of the parsley, and tomato paste. Carefully open the tin of octopus and strain the oil into the sauce. Do not add in the octopus just yet. Let the sauce cook for atleast 30 mins on a low simmer.
8. After your sauce has cooked for atleast 30 minutes, bring a large pot of water to boil and add salt.
9. Add in your pasta and cook for 8 mins, reserve 1 cups of pasta water and strain the rest of the pasta out. If your sauce has thickened too much, add in the pasta water little by little to thin out.
10. Add pasta, octopus, and a few scoops of sauce into the larger pot to cook on low heat for another 2 minutes or until the pasta is al dente. I like to add more parsley and olive oil before serving. Top with basil!