Olivier Poels 5:40 p.m., October 22, 2021

As with tagine, baeckeoffe or paella, it is the dish used to prepare the tielle that gave it its name.

To prepare a good tielle, you need a pouffre - understand an octopus.

For the dough, nothing complicated: it is a bread dough in which the water has been replaced by white wine.

The recipe comes from Italy, it was brought by the emigrants from the city of Borgo di Gaeta at the end of the 19th century. They themselves were inspired by a Spanish recipe. In Iberian land, we used to make a dough that served as a support, but also as a cover for the preparations. This made it possible to keep them longer. The original recipe therefore does not contain exclusively octopus.

A dish for the poor, for immigrants, the tielle did not have a good reputation in the 19th century and children sometimes hid to eat it… It was the dish of fishermen par excellence.

It was a certain Adrienne Verducci who, in the 1930s, gave this dish its letters of nobility.

Fishmonger, she made these puff pies in the baker's oven.

The whole town was tearing them apart.

His son, Achilles, continued the manufacture and the success grew.

The recipe for tielle sétoise:

Ingredients :

- 1 kg of octopus (thawed)


- 200 gr of crushed tomatoes


- 25 gr of black olives


- 500 gr of flour


- Baker's yeast


- 25 cl of white wine


- Olive oil


- 400 gr of flour


- Lukewarm water


- 1 onion


- 1 tbsp.

to s.

paprika


- 1 tsp.

to c.

harissa

Make the dough: 

1. Mix the yeast in 5cl of lukewarm water, add two tablespoons of flour and leave for 30 min.

2. Add the flour, 7 cl of white wine, 10 cl of olive oil, a pinch of salt and paprika

3. knead 15 min.

4. Leave to stand for two hours in a warm place.

Make the stew:

1.cut the octopus into small pieces

2. Grill them in a pan in a little olive oil

3. Book

4. Melt the chopped onion, add the garlic in small pieces, the harissa, a dash of white wine, the crushed tomatoes and the olives.

5. Simmer 30 to 40 minutes

Fit the tiel:

1. Roll out the dough and cut rounds with a cookie cutter

2. Place in a large mold or individual small molds, stuff with octopus stew and cover with a circle of dough and seal the edges.

3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 220 °.