Creamy rice with octopus and clams

Today Carmen, author of Mint in the kitchen, brings us a terrific rice recipe: easy to prepare and very tasty, this rice with octopus you'll love it, and Carmen also shares several options to vary it and adapt it to your taste.

I'm sure many of you are already back from your holidays; I hope you enjoyed these well-deserved days of rest. I don't know if it's the same for you, but honestly, after a few weeks away from home, I was longing to come back and, above all, get back to my routines, leave behind restaurant meals, the excesses of summer, and sit down in front of a delicious plate of home-cooked food like this one creamy rice with octopus and clams.

This dish, like so many others, has always been at my mother's house, sometimes without octopus, just the rice with clams -just as delicious!-, even substituting these with clams, when money didn't stretch any further (imagine a family with six children).

If you like rice, I recommend giving this recipe a try and adapting it to your tastes or needs—you’re sure to love it.

Bérard olive wood cutting board and low casserole, Shallow Casserole type Le Creuset.

Ingredients

• 300gr of bomba rice
• 1 large cooked octopus tentacle
• 300gr of clams
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 spring onion
• 1 Italian green pepper
• 200ml of white wine
• 1 grated tomato
• 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
• 1 liter of fish stock
• A few strands of saffron
• Salt
• Extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

1. In a casserole dish or shallow casserole we add a few tablespoons of olive oil and put it on the heat.
2. When it begins to smoke, add the very finely chopped garlic, and before it browns, add the finely diced spring onion and pepper and let them soften.
3. Meanwhile, we put the clams in a saucepan covered and steam them open, removing them as they open. Set aside.
4. Once the vegetables are softened in the casserole, we add the grated or crushed tomato and the teaspoon of paprika and cook for about 3 minutes.
5. Add the rice to the pot and sauté it with the sofrito for a couple of minutes.
6. We add the wine to the rice and let the alcohol evaporate.
7. Add the liquid from opening the clams and the stock with the saffron threads, which we will have been heating beforehand on the stove, and add it when it comes to a boil.
8. Add the chopped octopus, adjust the salt, and let it cook for about 18 minutes.
9. Add the clams and cook for a couple more minutes.
10. After this time we remove the casserole from the heat, cover with a kitchen towel clean and let rest for 5 minutes.
11. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve immediately.

Le Creuset low cocotte Shallow Casserole and Laura Ashley porcelain bowls

To make this rice on this occasion, I used an octopus tentacle I had in the freezer, which turns out wonderfully and makes preparing this dish much easier. But if you choose to cook the octopus yourself, save the cooking water and add some of it along with the fish stock; that way you'll intensify the octopus flavor of this rice. I hope you like it… Let us know!