Recipe for Veracruz octopus (Pulpos a la veracruzana)

Veracruz, one of the oldest cities of Mexico to be founded by the spanish; has very deep cultural roots. Today one of the features of this city that comes to mind is the numerous seafood dishes served there; presenting here an easy recipe most Mexican seafood lovers will fall in love with, the traditional way to prepare octopus in Veracruz.




Mexican recipe for Veracruz style Octopus:

Ingredients: (for 6 people)

* 9 lb. of octopus
* Salt to taste
* Juice from 4 lemons
* 2 onions, halved to cook the octopus
* Fistful of marjoram
* 4 bay leaves
* 1 stick of butter
* 1 large onion, chopped finely
* 3 ad 1/2 lb. of tomatoes peeled, seeded then chopped
* 1/2 cup of raisins
* 1/2 cup of peeled almonds
* 1 cup chopped or whole pitted olives, to taste
* 4 chopped chipotle peppers in adobo
* 2 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder, salt and pepper to taste
* 1 and 1/2 cups red wine to mix with the ink

Preparation:

1) First we prepare the octopuses; remove their hard beak (if not already removed) from each octopus, and rinse well. Boil the octopus with salt, lemon, onion and herbs until tender (this takes 40 minutes, if using a pressure cooker, it takes much longer when cooked conventionally). Let the cooked octopus cool down, then cut into small pieces.

2) Meanwhile, melt the butter and fry the onion until golden brown; add the tomatoes and fry them well too, until they start to melt down; then add the raisins, almonds, olives, chipotles, broth and octopus and finally the octopus ink, previously mixed with red wine. Boil a few minutes and serve.

3) Arrange some white rice around each plate, decorated with slices of fried plantain; in the middle of the rice put the octopus. Octopuses leftovers are served separately in a deep plate.



Enjoy your meal!


a hot pepper