We´re very lucky Up The Mountain to be able to get hold of fresh fish, even though we live 45km from the coast. Having said that, I do keep fish in my freezer and cleaned squid is one of those things that keeps well and seems to suffer no ill effects from freezing. We don´t get a visit from Fish Man on Mondays, becuase there is no fishing on Sundays, but this morning he drove up, and this is what we bought.
One of the effects of little Alfi´s run in (literally) with Fish Man´s van is that when he hears him approaching and bipping his horn, he runs and hides under the nearest table, shaking and looking very sorry for himself. Whilst I don´t like to see him frightened, at least I know he has learned a very important lesson as far as cars and dogs go.
Today I´m going to give you a super easy way of cooking squid, which I know can be quite scary looking. I´m also going to tell you how to clean them if you ever do get lucky enough to get hold of fresh squid for either cooking that day or freezing for another day.
Feeling brave? Come on then, get those kitchen gloves on and let´s get cracking.
First of all you need to grab hold of that squid like you mean business.
Now pull the legs and anything that comes with them out and put to one side for the moment.
Now pull out the spine which looks like a sliver of clear plastic. Sorry this is a bit blurred – Big Man was in charge of photos and was excited about eating squid!
Rinse the body (including the inside) and go back to the legs which you will pull or snip away from any mucky bits in the middle just below the “eyes”. Still blurry, still excited!
From the centre of the legs (which are really tentacles!) pull out the hard centre core (or beak).
Rinse the legs and contemplate your bowl of lovely clean squid. Well done!
Now you can either cut the squid up or leave it whole. For battered squid rings (covered in flour and deep fried) “A La Romana”, you´ll need to slice. Today we´re just going to keep it very simple.
Sprinkle with salt and olive oil and put onto a hot griddle or into a frying pan (no oil needed as you have already put some on the squid). Keep the heat high, they´ll need a couple of minutes on each side depending on their size. When the flesh is no longer opaque but a good white colour, turn and continue to cook.
Remove from the heat when done and either drizzle with salsa verde and lemon juice, or add some finely chopped parsley, garlic and lemon juice. Serve with plenty of delicious crusty bread to mop up those amazing juices.
And if you can´t get hold of fresh squid, oriental stores often sell packets of squid tubes frozen which are very good!
Chica Andaluza 