Borthéto

Name: Borthéto (A Corfiot Recipe for Stewing Fish or Octopus)
Yield: Serves Four
Cuisine: Greece
Ingredients: 750 g (1 lb 10 oz) dogfish or similar fish or octopus; 1 kg (2¼ lb) potatoes, peeled and cut as for boiling; ½ kg (1 lb 2 oz) onions, sliced; 150 ml (5 fl oz) olive oil; 1 kg (2¼ lb) tomatoes or 2 tbs tomato purée diluted with water; 1-1½ kg (2¼-3¼ lb) rascasse, or; 3 tbs chopped parsley; salt to taste; 2 tsp cayenne pepper

A Corfiot Recipe for Stewing Fish or Octopus

Preparation info

Serves
Four

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Mediterranean Seafood

By Alan Davidson

Published 1981

About

Major Forte, when Vice Consul in Kérkyra (Corfu), kindly provided this and the following recipe. He tells me that borthéto is a Corfiot word not found in the Greek dictionary and probably derived from the Venetian occupation of two hundred or more years ago.

Ingredients

1-1½ kg (2¼-3¼ lb) rascasse, or
750 g (

Europe
Greece
Fish course
Pescatarian
Gluten-free
Spicy
Mediterranean

Method

The rascasses should be cleaned in the usual way, but leave the heads in place. The dogfish or the octopus would be bought ready cleaned, hence the smaller weights specified for them. If you use octopus make sure that it is well beaten and tender.

First brown the onion in the olive oil, in a large pan. Then add a generous half litre (18–19