There's this wonderful Thai restaurant near the CC's old workplace which has a dish that the CC is obsessed with.
It ticks off all the right notes - funky, umami, complex with enough heat to set your mouth alight and yet, in that precise Thai way, it works!
The CC has had plenty of opportunities to "reverse engineer" this particular dish. It looks like a variation on the equally famous pad prik khing.
The CC is totally a sucker for the green peppercorns that come in the dish. They are not easy to find but you must get the ones pickled in brine not in vinegar.
There seemed to be a complex metallic note behind it, and the CC figured it the old fashioned way when he spilled some on his shirt. It was fresh turmeric. The CC was out a shirt but had gained a recipe. Cosmic balance and all that.
Ingredients
Paste
4 kaffir lime leaves (sliced very fine)
4 cloves garlic
1 large shallot
2 tbsp shrimp paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1" galangal
1 lemongrass stalk
1 small turmeric
2-3 Thai bird chilies
sugar (to balance the taste)
Stir-Fry
peanut oil
2 squid (read notes below)
6 Thai eggplants (quartered)
8-12 long beans (cut into 1" pieces)
1/2 cup bamboo shoots
3 tbsp green peppercorns
Thai basil
Recipe
Note 1: You will need a mortar and pestle to pound it to a paste. A food processor is simply not the same.
Note 2: Traditionally, the paste may require more or less ingredients depending on the quality thereof. For example, the CC only used 1 chili pepper since it was super hot. You need to taste and adjust based on the ingredients you have.
Note 3: The squid are cut into 1.5" x 1" pieces and cross-hatched with a knife. They will curl up and quickly cook in the stir-fry.
Note 4: The stir-fry goes at a rapid pace. You will need to have everything ready.
First prepare the paste. In a mortar and pestle, pound all the ingredients together to a fine paste. You may need to add more fish paste to loosen the sauce, or a little more sugar if it feels too salty. The paste should be thick, pungent and definitely have a bite from the chilies.
Heat the peanut oil until it is shimmering. Add the paste and fry for a bit. Add the eggplants and continue frying for 2 mins. Add the bamboo shoots and the long beans and fry for 2-3 mins. You may need to add 2-3 tbsp of water to loosen the sauce at this point. Add the squid and the peppercorns. Take off the heat as soon as the squid curl.
Top with the basil leaves.
Serve at once with jasmine rice.
Showing posts with label squid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squid. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Weekend Menu
Just one "fancy" meal on the weekend with an old classic on Saturday. Recipes to follow.
The first meal is classically Italian, of course, but the ingredients came from a Japanese store. They have higher standards of quality.
The correlative in the Japanese meal is the blackness. It comes from the black rice which is representative of squid ink but there's none of that in the rice. The "toban djan" is Chinese in origin but it's amazing how the Japanese have converted the quick stir-fry to their own tastes. The "burdock salad" has mayonnaise but Japanese-style which is much much lighter and once again umami-laden. Okra is emphatically not Japanese but once again their love of slimy substances (natto!) means they've made it their own. There's very little "Japanese" about the second meal except that they have taken all these influences and converted them into a coherent Japanese meal.
The CC has said this many times but he'll say it again. One of the pleasures of cuisine is to be able to see the world through a different pair of eyes. We're all stuck with our origins but we can surpass them with imagination and empathy.
Cuisine is the fastest and easiest way to get there†.
† This is the 1000th post. No need to get all misty-eyed. There will be many more to come.
The first meal is classically Italian, of course, but the ingredients came from a Japanese store. They have higher standards of quality.
The correlative in the Japanese meal is the blackness. It comes from the black rice which is representative of squid ink but there's none of that in the rice. The "toban djan" is Chinese in origin but it's amazing how the Japanese have converted the quick stir-fry to their own tastes. The "burdock salad" has mayonnaise but Japanese-style which is much much lighter and once again umami-laden. Okra is emphatically not Japanese but once again their love of slimy substances (natto!) means they've made it their own. There's very little "Japanese" about the second meal except that they have taken all these influences and converted them into a coherent Japanese meal.
The CC has said this many times but he'll say it again. One of the pleasures of cuisine is to be able to see the world through a different pair of eyes. We're all stuck with our origins but we can surpass them with imagination and empathy.
Cuisine is the fastest and easiest way to get there†.
Pasta with mushroom sauce
Japanese meal
Three-taste mixed rice (white, brown, black)
Okra ohitashi
Burdock salad (ゴボウサラダ)
Squid toban djan
Miso soup
Smashed-cucumber pickle (タタキキュリ); Myoga
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Stracci con Ragú di Pesce
This recipe is serious work so it's not for everyone.
This recipe requires access to the freshest seafood and that means a local fisherman not a supermarket!
This recipe isn't here to feed your pathetic little palate. It's here to ensure the perfection of your soul.
It only works in summer when you have access to fresh seafood, fresh tomatoes and basil but what a recipe!
If you don't understand why tomatoes, you should read this.
The CC is also assuming that you have made the tomato sauce ahead of time. It's always there in the CC's kitchen in summer but if not you will need to make that as well.
So get cranking!
Stracci con ragú di pesce
(serves 2)
Note: This is the rare recipe that pairs fresh pasta with seafood and tomatoes. It's the exception that proves the rule. The idea is that both the tomatoes act as an accent. They are definitely not the main show here. The fresh seafood is.
Ingredients
Fresh Pasta
1 cup 00 flour (substitute by sieved all-purpose)
1 egg
salt
Ragú di pesce
6 scallops
2 squid
12 clams
8 cloves garlic
1 dried red chili
16 cherry tomatoes (half yellow, half red — cut in half)
1/3 cup white wine
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 sprigs basil
pinch of saffron
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
few basil leaves (cut into thin ribbons with scissors)
basil (ripped by hand into rough shreds)
Recipe
First, make the fresh pasta. (If you don't know how, you're probably going to need something a little more precise than the instructions below. Ironically, it's one of those things that's trivial to demonstrate and hard to write about.)
Dump the flour in a bowl. Make a well. Crack an egg into it. Add some salt. With a fork whip the egg, incorporating the flour as it goes by. Do NOT add water. Use your hands when it looks mixed in. Knead the dough to a silky mass adding only the tiniest amount of flour to make your hands not stick.
Set aside for at least 20 minutes.
Using a pasta maker, crank the dough repeatedly through all settings down to 5.
(Pasta machines have a scale from 1-8. One is coarsest and eight is finest. The reason to not crank it down to 5 straight away is that each pass through "kneads" the dough correctly to make it smooth and uniform. So you need to go through 1-2-3-4-5. Experienced chefs even repeat the 1 and 2 folding the dough into "threes" if they want a particularly refined pasta.)
Do not make it too thin. Cut into long thick ribbons and lay out on a tray to dry for at least an hour or even more in summer if it is humid. Two to three hours is preferable. The dough must dry out substantially otherwise it will fall apart.
(Yes, the CC knows that this is not stracci which refers to "rags" — irregularly cut pasta. You can cut the thick ribbons into irregular pieces. To make a true stracci, you'd have to hand-roll the pasta. If your spirit is willing and your flesh not weak, go for it!)
Then make the fresh seafood ragú.
Put the clams in a pot with half a cup of water. Heat them at high heat till they open. Fish out each one as it opens. Shuck them making sure to retain the liquid. Pass the liquid from the clams as well as the liquid from the pot through a paper towel (to eliminate the sand) and retain the liquid.
(The reason to shuck the clams is so that the shell doesn't tear the delicate pasta. With dried pasta, the clams are tossed with the shell to good effect but here we're working with fresh pasta and the clam shells would tear the pasta into shreds which we don't want.)
Heat up some olive oil in a pan. Add the garlic and red chili and let it fry for about 6 minutes at low heat. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Add the white wine and the clam juice from above and let it reduce a bit.
Toss in the cherry tomatoes and let cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and basil strips and let cook till it is reduced somewhat.
Now make the pasta. When the water is boiling, add the pasta and let it cook. 3 minutes no more.
While the pasta is cooking, add the raw seafood, cooked clams and the saffron to the hot ragú. Do not overcook. You can even turn off the heat if the sauce is hot enough.
Drain the pasta and toss everything together. Add the torn basil and black pepper. Serve at once.
This recipe requires access to the freshest seafood and that means a local fisherman not a supermarket!
This recipe isn't here to feed your pathetic little palate. It's here to ensure the perfection of your soul.
It only works in summer when you have access to fresh seafood, fresh tomatoes and basil but what a recipe!
If you don't understand why tomatoes, you should read this.
The CC is also assuming that you have made the tomato sauce ahead of time. It's always there in the CC's kitchen in summer but if not you will need to make that as well.
So get cranking!
Stracci con ragú di pesce
(serves 2)
Note: This is the rare recipe that pairs fresh pasta with seafood and tomatoes. It's the exception that proves the rule. The idea is that both the tomatoes act as an accent. They are definitely not the main show here. The fresh seafood is.
Ingredients
Fresh Pasta
1 cup 00 flour (substitute by sieved all-purpose)
1 egg
salt
Ragú di pesce
6 scallops
2 squid
12 clams
8 cloves garlic
1 dried red chili
16 cherry tomatoes (half yellow, half red — cut in half)
1/3 cup white wine
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 sprigs basil
pinch of saffron
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
few basil leaves (cut into thin ribbons with scissors)
basil (ripped by hand into rough shreds)
Recipe
First, make the fresh pasta. (If you don't know how, you're probably going to need something a little more precise than the instructions below. Ironically, it's one of those things that's trivial to demonstrate and hard to write about.)
Dump the flour in a bowl. Make a well. Crack an egg into it. Add some salt. With a fork whip the egg, incorporating the flour as it goes by. Do NOT add water. Use your hands when it looks mixed in. Knead the dough to a silky mass adding only the tiniest amount of flour to make your hands not stick.
Set aside for at least 20 minutes.
Using a pasta maker, crank the dough repeatedly through all settings down to 5.
(Pasta machines have a scale from 1-8. One is coarsest and eight is finest. The reason to not crank it down to 5 straight away is that each pass through "kneads" the dough correctly to make it smooth and uniform. So you need to go through 1-2-3-4-5. Experienced chefs even repeat the 1 and 2 folding the dough into "threes" if they want a particularly refined pasta.)
Do not make it too thin. Cut into long thick ribbons and lay out on a tray to dry for at least an hour or even more in summer if it is humid. Two to three hours is preferable. The dough must dry out substantially otherwise it will fall apart.
(Yes, the CC knows that this is not stracci which refers to "rags" — irregularly cut pasta. You can cut the thick ribbons into irregular pieces. To make a true stracci, you'd have to hand-roll the pasta. If your spirit is willing and your flesh not weak, go for it!)
Then make the fresh seafood ragú.
Put the clams in a pot with half a cup of water. Heat them at high heat till they open. Fish out each one as it opens. Shuck them making sure to retain the liquid. Pass the liquid from the clams as well as the liquid from the pot through a paper towel (to eliminate the sand) and retain the liquid.
(The reason to shuck the clams is so that the shell doesn't tear the delicate pasta. With dried pasta, the clams are tossed with the shell to good effect but here we're working with fresh pasta and the clam shells would tear the pasta into shreds which we don't want.)
Heat up some olive oil in a pan. Add the garlic and red chili and let it fry for about 6 minutes at low heat. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Add the white wine and the clam juice from above and let it reduce a bit.
Toss in the cherry tomatoes and let cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and basil strips and let cook till it is reduced somewhat.
Now make the pasta. When the water is boiling, add the pasta and let it cook. 3 minutes no more.
While the pasta is cooking, add the raw seafood, cooked clams and the saffron to the hot ragú. Do not overcook. You can even turn off the heat if the sauce is hot enough.
Drain the pasta and toss everything together. Add the torn basil and black pepper. Serve at once.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
A Summer Filipino Meal
The classic signature dish of Filipino cooking is the adobo.
In the great spirit of free-wheeling language that the Philippines subscribes to, and the fact that English loves verbalizing nouns, you can "adobo" anything!
Traditionally, it's been used for meats and seafoods but it extends to vegetables and all and sundry. It's one of the great meta-recipes of all time!
As with all classic dishes, if you query three people, you'd probably get thirty recipes so to invoke a broad generalization, you are looking at a cooked sauce of soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and black peppercorns reduced to various degrees depending on the dish.
Filipinos from the Bicol region even add coconut milk but this is considered "strange". A friend's father once stage whispered to the CC, "'Some' people even add coconut milk!"
Some people indeed do! Some strange people indeed!
As the Japanese say, 十人十色 (ten people, ten colors — different strokes for different folks!)
The salt (from the soy sauce) and vinegar betray the tropical origins of the dish. An acidic dish like that can be stored without any refrigeration because bacteria cannot grow in that environment.
You might think that the vinegar would give it a really sharp taste but cooking the vinegar gives it this smooth rounded mellow taste that's hard to describe but entirely brilliant. It sets your taste buds alive without that mouth-puckering taste that a tart vinaigrette might invoke.
For this summer meal, since the CC has access to really fresh seafood, a squid adobo was made. The sauce is finished off with the ink which gives it an iodine-y edge of the sea. (All of this is extraordinarily traditional.)
The side salad is another classic accompaniment - radishes, tomatoes and roasted dried anchovies in a slightly spicy sour sauce.
They definitely do love their souring agents!
Radish Salad with Anchovies (Dilis)
Ingredients
4 red radishes (or 1 small daikon)
2 tomatoes
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis (Filipino fish sauce)
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger
black pepper
1/2 cup dried anchovies
Recipe
Cut the radishes really fine. A mandoline helps here. Chop the tomatoes.
Mix together everything but the anchovies. This stuff can be prepared ahead of time. Be warned that the mixture will leach water as time goes by. (Yes, this is desirable.)
(The CC keeps the above mixture in the fridge for ready access. He loves this dish beyond reason. It makes the perfect "no-cook" nutritionally-complete dish for summer with umami out the wazoo.)
Roast the dried anchovies on a skillet. They will burn really quickly since they are really really flat and small so you need to be careful. Set aside.
Right before serving, mix the dried anchovies with the mixture above including the liquid. Serve right away.
Adobong Pusit (Squid Adobo)
(Source: Burnt Lumpia.)
Ingredients
1 lb squid (squid ink separated)
1 large red onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup cane vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
8-12 black peppercorns
squid ink
Recipe
Clean the squid and separate the ink from the ink-sac. This is a messy process so proceed carefully. Cut the squid into rings and set aside.
(In a chicken adobo which doesn't have the blackness of the squid ink, the black peppercorns are kept whole but for a dish like this, you're better off grinding the peppercorns.)
In a pan, heat the oil. Fry the onions, garlic, and green chillies for a bit. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, water, black peppercorns and bay leaves. Let reduce for a bit.
(Your nose will tell you when the vinegar no longer has that sharp vinegary taste. There is a very very characteristic "adobo smell", and only experience can teach you this one at least until the CC invents Smell-O-Vision™!)
Bring to a boil. Take off the heat.
Toss in the squid, and squid ink. The heat will cook the squid just enough to be ready.
In the great spirit of free-wheeling language that the Philippines subscribes to, and the fact that English loves verbalizing nouns, you can "adobo" anything!
Traditionally, it's been used for meats and seafoods but it extends to vegetables and all and sundry. It's one of the great meta-recipes of all time!
As with all classic dishes, if you query three people, you'd probably get thirty recipes so to invoke a broad generalization, you are looking at a cooked sauce of soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and black peppercorns reduced to various degrees depending on the dish.
Filipinos from the Bicol region even add coconut milk but this is considered "strange". A friend's father once stage whispered to the CC, "'Some' people even add coconut milk!"
Some people indeed do! Some strange people indeed!
As the Japanese say, 十人十色 (ten people, ten colors — different strokes for different folks!)
The salt (from the soy sauce) and vinegar betray the tropical origins of the dish. An acidic dish like that can be stored without any refrigeration because bacteria cannot grow in that environment.
You might think that the vinegar would give it a really sharp taste but cooking the vinegar gives it this smooth rounded mellow taste that's hard to describe but entirely brilliant. It sets your taste buds alive without that mouth-puckering taste that a tart vinaigrette might invoke.
For this summer meal, since the CC has access to really fresh seafood, a squid adobo was made. The sauce is finished off with the ink which gives it an iodine-y edge of the sea. (All of this is extraordinarily traditional.)
The side salad is another classic accompaniment - radishes, tomatoes and roasted dried anchovies in a slightly spicy sour sauce.
They definitely do love their souring agents!
Radish Salad with Anchovies (Dilis)
Ingredients
4 red radishes (or 1 small daikon)
2 tomatoes
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis (Filipino fish sauce)
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger
black pepper
1/2 cup dried anchovies
Recipe
Cut the radishes really fine. A mandoline helps here. Chop the tomatoes.
Mix together everything but the anchovies. This stuff can be prepared ahead of time. Be warned that the mixture will leach water as time goes by. (Yes, this is desirable.)
(The CC keeps the above mixture in the fridge for ready access. He loves this dish beyond reason. It makes the perfect "no-cook" nutritionally-complete dish for summer with umami out the wazoo.)
Roast the dried anchovies on a skillet. They will burn really quickly since they are really really flat and small so you need to be careful. Set aside.
Right before serving, mix the dried anchovies with the mixture above including the liquid. Serve right away.
Adobong Pusit (Squid Adobo)
(Source: Burnt Lumpia.)
Ingredients
1 lb squid (squid ink separated)
1 large red onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup cane vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
8-12 black peppercorns
squid ink
Recipe
Clean the squid and separate the ink from the ink-sac. This is a messy process so proceed carefully. Cut the squid into rings and set aside.
(In a chicken adobo which doesn't have the blackness of the squid ink, the black peppercorns are kept whole but for a dish like this, you're better off grinding the peppercorns.)
In a pan, heat the oil. Fry the onions, garlic, and green chillies for a bit. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, water, black peppercorns and bay leaves. Let reduce for a bit.
(Your nose will tell you when the vinegar no longer has that sharp vinegary taste. There is a very very characteristic "adobo smell", and only experience can teach you this one at least until the CC invents Smell-O-Vision™!)
Bring to a boil. Take off the heat.
Toss in the squid, and squid ink. The heat will cook the squid just enough to be ready.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Arroz caldoso con sepia y coliflor
This is an entirely unusual recipe in that it sounds positively weird on paper but is absolutely delicious in practice.
Arroz caldoso is the ultimate comfort food. Rice, protein and seasonings in a soupy broth that is absolutely perfect when the weather gets cold.
Best of all, it reheats wonderfully (attn: office dwellers) and the taste improves with time.
It's Valencian in origin, and originally features cuttlefish (sepia) but lacking that, the CC used squid.
You will notice below that the technique is entirely unusual. Instead of the onions and garlic being sautéed first, the squid is. There is logic here. Squid needs to be either cooked very little, or a long time otherwise you get a rubbery unappetizing texture. This recipe uses the latter method.
Ingredients
2 cups Valencian short-grain rice (substitute by Arborio)
6 cups fish broth
1/2 lb tomatoes (passed through a food mill)
1 lb cauliflower florets
1 lb cuttlefish (or squid) cut into 1/2 inch slices
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 large onion, coarsely grated
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp saffron
1 tsp sweet paprika (preferably Spanish smoked)
4 tbsp fresh parsley (chopped fine)
sea salt
Recipe
Combine the broth and saffron in a pot and keep warm over a very low flame.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In an oven-proof casserole, heat the olive oil, and sauté the squid. Sprinkle with the sea salt while this is happening. Stir in the cauliflower, garlic and grated onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, parsley and cook for 3 minutes. Turn the heat to low and let cook for 10 minutes.
Stir in the paprika, rice, and sauté until the rice is well coated with the mixture. Pour in the broth and boil for 5-8 minutes until the rice is slightly done. Transfer to the oven and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered until the rice is still al dente.
The mixture should be still soupy at this point.
Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve.
Arroz caldoso is the ultimate comfort food. Rice, protein and seasonings in a soupy broth that is absolutely perfect when the weather gets cold.
Best of all, it reheats wonderfully (attn: office dwellers) and the taste improves with time.
It's Valencian in origin, and originally features cuttlefish (sepia) but lacking that, the CC used squid.
You will notice below that the technique is entirely unusual. Instead of the onions and garlic being sautéed first, the squid is. There is logic here. Squid needs to be either cooked very little, or a long time otherwise you get a rubbery unappetizing texture. This recipe uses the latter method.
Ingredients
2 cups Valencian short-grain rice (substitute by Arborio)
6 cups fish broth
1/2 lb tomatoes (passed through a food mill)
1 lb cauliflower florets
1 lb cuttlefish (or squid) cut into 1/2 inch slices
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 large onion, coarsely grated
4 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp saffron
1 tsp sweet paprika (preferably Spanish smoked)
4 tbsp fresh parsley (chopped fine)
sea salt
Recipe
Combine the broth and saffron in a pot and keep warm over a very low flame.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In an oven-proof casserole, heat the olive oil, and sauté the squid. Sprinkle with the sea salt while this is happening. Stir in the cauliflower, garlic and grated onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, parsley and cook for 3 minutes. Turn the heat to low and let cook for 10 minutes.
Stir in the paprika, rice, and sauté until the rice is well coated with the mixture. Pour in the broth and boil for 5-8 minutes until the rice is slightly done. Transfer to the oven and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered until the rice is still al dente.
The mixture should be still soupy at this point.
Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Squid-Ink Risotto
If you've never had it, this is one of the foods of the gods.
Recipe
2 cup vialone nano rice
3 shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 dried red chillies (crumbled fine)
2 squids (cleaned, cut into rounds)
2 tbsp squid ink
1 cup white wine
6 tomatoes (pulped with a food mill)
4 cups broth
3 tbsp thyme (substitute with rosemary)
olive oil
black pepper
sea salt
4 tbsp parsley (chopped, for garnish)
Ingredients
The recipe follows along the lines of a standard risotto with a few kinks.
Keep the broth on a simmer in a separate vessel.
Fry the shallots and the garlic in olive oil at a medium heat. Add the rice, and fry to make sure that each grain is coated in the olive oil. Add plenty of ground pepper, the red chillies and the salt. Add the white wine to deglaze, and stir. Add a ladle of hot broth along with the tomato puree. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Add the squid ink.
The mixture will turn instantly from a pale red to a deep dark inky black. Keep adding ladlefuls of broth stirring constantly. Add the thyme/rosemary towards the end. Just before you are ready to serve, add the cleaned squid, and take the pot off the heat. (You don't want to overcook the squid.)
Serve immediately sprinkled with parsley preferably with a steely white wine.
Recipe
2 cup vialone nano rice
3 shallots
4 cloves garlic
2 dried red chillies (crumbled fine)
2 squids (cleaned, cut into rounds)
2 tbsp squid ink
1 cup white wine
6 tomatoes (pulped with a food mill)
4 cups broth
3 tbsp thyme (substitute with rosemary)
olive oil
black pepper
sea salt
4 tbsp parsley (chopped, for garnish)
Ingredients
The recipe follows along the lines of a standard risotto with a few kinks.
Keep the broth on a simmer in a separate vessel.
Fry the shallots and the garlic in olive oil at a medium heat. Add the rice, and fry to make sure that each grain is coated in the olive oil. Add plenty of ground pepper, the red chillies and the salt. Add the white wine to deglaze, and stir. Add a ladle of hot broth along with the tomato puree. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Add the squid ink.
The mixture will turn instantly from a pale red to a deep dark inky black. Keep adding ladlefuls of broth stirring constantly. Add the thyme/rosemary towards the end. Just before you are ready to serve, add the cleaned squid, and take the pot off the heat. (You don't want to overcook the squid.)
Serve immediately sprinkled with parsley preferably with a steely white wine.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Tapas en España : Part 4
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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Monday, August 31, 2009
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Monday, August 17, 2009
Harvesting Squid Ink
Getting squid ink is easy. You need raw squid (squid that have not been cleaned.)
What's hard is that the ink stains everything. So you need to avoid splatter and clean up in case thereof. And yes, it does stain everything in sight!
Yank the squid behind the head and pull the tentacles outwards.
This is what it looks like (yep, that's the eye.)
.jpg)
The glistening silvery thing is the ink-sac. You need to puncture it gently and squeeze over a container. This is the hard part. You can't squeeze with your hands otherwise your hands and nails are gonna get stained. Use the back of a spoon (which is also gonna get stained. Scrape that ink off with another spoon (this is valuable stuff!)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Squid ink
What's hard is that the ink stains everything. So you need to avoid splatter and clean up in case thereof. And yes, it does stain everything in sight!
Yank the squid behind the head and pull the tentacles outwards.
This is what it looks like (yep, that's the eye.)
.jpg)
The glistening silvery thing is the ink-sac. You need to puncture it gently and squeeze over a container. This is the hard part. You can't squeeze with your hands otherwise your hands and nails are gonna get stained. Use the back of a spoon (which is also gonna get stained. Scrape that ink off with another spoon (this is valuable stuff!)
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