Octopus pie from Sète – tielle sètoise

Ports and seaside resorts are often melting pots of different food  influences, and Sète on the Mediterranean coast is a classic example.

Its octopus pie – la tielle sètoise – is not its only claim to culinary fame. There are the oysters of course, and nearly a dozen local seafood dishes that trace their origins to the area.

These include:

• Macaronade (pasta in tomato sauce with beef and pork and sausagemeat)
• Rouille de seiche (cuttlefish stew)
• Bourride de baudroie (a fish stew with lotte – monkfish)
• Variants on bouillabaisse (the fish soup of Languedoc and Provence)
• Langouste à la sètoise or civet de langouste (similar to the more famous homard à l’américaine, according to the food writer Elizabeth David)
• Stuffed mussels
• And besides the Italian influences, don’t forget the North African ones – check out the recent film by Abdel Kechiche and the late Claude Berri called La graine et le mulet, which was set around Sète and has a serious amount of couscous cooking in it

Sète is Seta in Occitan, and used to be known as Cette until 1927

But above all, Sète has those spicy tielles. Les tielle sètoises.

They are a sort of octopus ragout that’s encased in a dough, and the best ones  have a brilliant sunny golden crust.

Like a Cornish pastie, tielles are very portable, so they make great picnic food.

The pies have a strong fishy flavour,  ever so slightly reminiscent of tinned pilchards or sardines in tomato sauce.

Generally speaking I wouldn’t be bothered making them, as  you can find them in ambundance in the Hérault, from big supermarkets to little corner shops.

But here is the gist of how they are made. And of course there are as many recipes for tielle as there are inhabitants in Sète.

1. First catch your octopus

Octopus has been caught on this stretch of the coast and shipped to Toulouse since the 14th century or earlier.

There are even octopus recipes such as stuffed octopus (with mint, parsley, and other herbs) in a Catalan tome called the Libre de Sent Sovi (1324), one of the oldest cookbooks in Europe.

Anyway, put your octopus in a large pot of boiling salted water with a splash of vinegar or perhaps in a bouillon, and boil until tender, about 45 minutes.

Drain, rinse with cold water, peel as much of the skin off it as you can while it is still hot. Chop the octopus into slightly smaller than bite-size pieces.

2. Make the dough

Recipes often say the crust is made from plain flour, olive oil, cold water and a pinch of salt. Very much a shortcrust pastry type recipe.

But most of the nest crusts I’ve encountered have a good bit of a spring in them, and some locals swear that it should be more like a bread dough. For example, Jean Brunelin says to  use yeast, and he should know – he’s from La Marine restaurant in Sète.

3. Heat up the filling

This usually consists of:

• The squid
• More olive oil (extra virgin)
• Chopped onions
• Herbs – bay leaf, rosemary, fennel bulb, maybe saffron, possibly thyme
• Spices – black pepper, sea salt, fresh hot chilli or possibly some cayenne pepper
• Chopped garlic
• Tomato paste and hot water (or well-reduced tomato sauce)
• Dry white wine

The mixture needs to be cooked down into a thick, moist mix without any obvious liquid.

4. Assemble it

Roll the dough into 5-inch disks, lightly grease some 4-inch tart pans  and cover each with a disk of dough.

Prick the dough all over with a fork. Spread several tablespoons of the tomato-and-octopus mixture over it. Cover with the remaining disks and pinch down the edges (you have to see an individual tielle to know what this should look like) so that they meet the bottom disk.

Pinch off any excess dough. Make a small slit in each top with a sharp knife.

Make a glaze of egg yolk and tomato paste, whisked together with a couple of drops of olive oil. Brush the crust with the glaze.

5. Bake it

Bake at about 200C until golden, about half an hour. Cool a little, serve with a glass of Picpoul de Pinot. Eat.

Just to confuse matters, down the road in Bouzigues they make something not too dissimilar – with mussels. It’s called chausson de moule or chaussons aux moules or something similar.