This is a lovely, light dish which looks impressive but is quick and easy to prepare. More so if you have already made some tomato sauce and buy ready cleaned squid.
If you need some help cleaning your squid, click here.
Ingredients Per Person
- 3-4 medium squid, cleaned
- 1 cup of garlicky tomato sauce (To make mine I soften 3 crushed cloves of garlic in olive oil, then add 1 kilo of crushed peeled tomatoes, 2 tablespoon of tomato purée, half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of sugar, plenty of fresh garlic, a glass of red wine and a few stalks of basil leaves. Simmer for about an hour, remove the basil and you´re done. This will give you 6-8 cups of sauce).
- Seasoning
Simply warm the sauce through then drop in the squid (this can be served whole or cut into smaller chunks. Simmer gently for about 5 minutes or until the squid has turned white. Taste, season, then serve – see, I told you it was easy!
Chica Andaluza 
Great simple way to serve squid. Excellent.
Thanks – and it´s so tender cooked quickly like this.
Okay, I really need to find a new word BUT this is absolutely SCRUMITY!!! Oh how I would love a portion of that today for my lunch!
🙂 Mandy
Please don´t ever change your word – I think they should put it into the Oxford English Dictionary!
Aah, thanks! 🙂 xo
I like Mandy’s word – Scrumity! this is truly scrumity, simple, fresh, delicious looking. Aahhhh
It´s a great word isn´t it?! And that´s just how this tastes too 🙂
Hi T, Looks delicious. Love the simplicity of this. tfs. Have a great weekend.
Regards Florence x
Thanks Florence – hope you´re better!
Sounds delicious!
It was!
Hi
Your dish looks lovely and yummy. Have to confess that I’ve never tasted squid before. I love seafood though, have to try it sometime.
I love your blog, the food is always nice and I love the dress making part even more. I would love to try my hand at dress making sometime.
Happy blogging.
Mwah
Thank you so much for your lovely words! The blog is mainly recipes but I also like to share other bits of our life here Up the Mountain – growing vegetables, making olive oil, keeping chickens and, of course, my beloved dressmaking! Will try to share a few more sewing stories as they seem to be quite popular!
Delicious – the simple ways are best! This is the sort of squid dish we eat a lot.
So quick and easy – a great way to cook lots of seafood (I think you have a mussel recipe similar to this?)
It certainly looks fantastic..oh how I miss the choice of fresh seafood where I am at the moment..in fact any seafood, fresh,fresh,fresh seafood can be only bought two hours away! Might have to move! x
We´re very lucky being so close to the sea, even having our Fish Man bring it up here to us!
I saw the title of your post, Tanya, and rushed to see the technique.Your recipe sounds very similar to an old recipe that Zia has mentioned. In hers, chopped calamares were added to a tomato sauce but I’ve never been served it. As far back as I remember, we’ve either braised or baked calamares that have been stuffed. I’m going to share this with her in the hopes that it will trigger her memory of the old recipe. To be honest, though, I don’t know how different it could be from yours.
Thank you, Tanya, for sharing this recipe. This is just my kind of dish — although I’d probably substitute some pasta for the rice. I just can’t help myself. 😉
Now that you mention it, I did often used to eat a pasta dish like this at the seaside – sometimes it would also have vongole or prawns or mussels in it too. Yummy! I think serving it with pasta is perfect, but I´d love to know if Zia has a little extra trick up her sleeve with her recipe (basil perhaps?)
Where were you at lunch time? I had overcooked calamari!
Probably scoffing my lunch! Oh dear, hope they weren´t too chewy 😦
Squid is delicious and quite underrated in England as I’m sure you know. That sauce sounds excellent 😉
You´re right – it is underrated in England. I did used to find it in the big Chinese supermarket not so far from where I used to live!
Fácil y rico!!!
Exactamente!
Yum. Wish we could get squid fresh enough for this. But I can use other stuff instead …. Yum.
Even with just a white fish it would be good and chuck in a few prawns if the budget runs to it)!
And because I am the only one liking prawns in my house, I would get them ALL. Good idea.
I love the look of this calamari! Never cooked it like this but will give it a try. I really enjoy your blog and have nominated you for the Sunshine Blogger’s Award. The details can be found at timetobeinspired.wordpress.com Terri
Thank you Terri for your kind words and the nomination – too kind!
The squid must taste so wonderful in that garlicky tomato sauce. This really is an impressive dish and I’m glad you say it’s easy! xx
I promise, it really is very easy. And even moreso if you have sauce already made and ready cleaned squid!
Nice and easy but you also have the benefit I think of fresh local squid, ours is always frozen so maybe a braise would be better, I’ll try it next time
Yes, we are lucky yo have great fresh and local fish and seafood here. This is a great recipe for frozen fish of many types.
I love calamares cooked like this, especially when you already have sauce prepared. It only takes minutes to cook them. Yummy.
Super quick, easy and tasty!
I’ve not bought nor cleaned squid before, so I’m off to read how to do that! You’ve always got the best gourmet recipes and you make this one easy to follow… my company would be so impressed if I served this one!!
I bet if you made it, it would be amazing (and look so beautiful too!)
I never think to do it that way…will have to give it a go sometime this summer!
Hope you enjoy it!
I just have frozen squid rings rather than whole squid but I bet they would go just fine with your sauce!
They would be perfect!
I love seafood specially squid and prawns, this would be an easy favourite of mine
Glad you liked it Raymund – we make it often here!
I love squid, but tend to cook with it only on Christmas Eve. I like seeing a lighter dish. Looks wonderful and tomatoes pair so well with squid.
We tend to eat squid quite often, mainly because it´s so easily available and not too expensive. If you do cook some before Christmas Eve, can recommend this method!
It’s not often that you see people serving squids whole – they’re so determined to cut them up into little rings or something – this looks like a lovely dish – I bet the garlicky tomato sauce is a fantastic accompaniment. It actually reminds me a bit of a dish I love in a nearby restaurant, although their squid is always frozen and often tough as old boots.
It´s true, before I came to Spain I had only ever eaten whole squid in Italy at the beach! Here it´s often served whole and to keep it tender it either has to be cooked very quickly or long and slow.
I’m confused. Are you saying that you serve the squid with tomato sauce on top and garnish it with something fresh? Because if you’re using a seasoning (ex. powdered garlic), it would become part of the sauce. Part of my confusion is that I don’t know what constitutes a “seasoning” in this case.
The quid is effectively poached in the sauce and “seasoning” for me (perhaps I should have explained better) is just salt and pepper – so add to suit your taste!