Tunisian Octopus Soup

Description
Tunisian Octopus Soup This is a spicy Tunisian octopus soup, we like piquant flavors with seafood. Octopus must be cooked quickly or very slowly to make it tender

Ingredients

 * 2 pounds of octopus, cleaned and cut into 1" pieces.


 * 1/2 cup of tomato paste, always use high quality tomato paste, there is nothing worse than cheap, tin can tasting tomato paste


 * 3 cloves of garlic minced


 * 1 onion finely chopped


 * 1 branch of celery, leaves incldued finely chopped


 * 1 carrot finely chopped


 * 3 dried red chilis


 * 1 bouquet of cilantro, leaves separated from stem


 * 1/2 cup of bulghur wheat, rinsed in a sieve


 * 1 tablespoon of caraway


 * 1 teaspoon of cumin


 * 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne


 * 1 teaspoon of coriander


 * Lemon wedges to squeeze fresh lemon juice into the soup at the table


 * Olive oil


 * Salt and pepper

Directions

 * 1) Saute the onions in olive oil until translucent, add the garlic, carrots and celery and saute for 15 minutes, add the tomato paste and more olive oil, saute for 10 minutes more. Season with salt.
 * 2) Add the octopus and enough water to cover plus 2 1/2 cups more, bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, add spices. Taste for salt, add more if needed. Add pepper. Cook the octopus until it is very tender about 1- 1 1/2 hours. Add the bulghur and cilantro during the last 20 minutes of cooking