Instructions
I hate cleaning squid. And when I say hate, let me stress that this is with a capital ‘H’.
You know, there are very few jobs in the professional kitchen that I don’t love doing. Pastry work, baking, butchery, garnish and canapés. Hey, I even get a kick out of washing down at the end of the night. But eviscerating squid is something I have always despised having to do. All that inky goop just makes me ill.
But yet, and here’s where it gets tricky, squid is also one of my all-time favourite things to eat. So what’s to be done? That’s right! Always make sure you have a keen-as-mustard kitchen hand hanging about ready to step in.
Squid are a family of invertebrate cephalopods that includes calamari. You can distinguish squid from calamari as the side fins on calamari run the full length of their body, while on bottle squid and arrow squid these fins are much shorter. Cuttlefish, by contrast, is an entirely separate species.
Once your kitchen hand (insert ‘spouse’ for domestic readers) has done his work and the squid are cleaned, discard the side fins as they become tough and flavourless when cooked. This will leave the body tubes, and the tentacle sets.
You then have a number of options in terms of cooking. One of my favourite squid preparations is a Genovese classic, stuffed with ricotta, pine nuts, basil and torn bread pieces soaked in olive oil. You seal the end of the tube with a toothpick and pan-roast until just cooked. The Spanish, by contrast, will braise the tubes and tentacles in a mixture of tomatoes, paprika and squid ink. It takes a bit of getting used to, but you’ll soon be hooked.
But enough about the joy of exotic concoctions, let’s face the truth. One of Australia’s all-time favourite recipes, and rapidly becoming our new national dish, is salt and pepper squid. Loved throughout Thailand, Vietnam and southern China, it can be made perfectly at home as easily as in a professional kitchen. All it takes is choosing the right blend of flours, getting the oil hot enough, and the crafting correct blend of spice and chilli. The fact that Australian squid is so very good just helps to make it perfect.
Salt and pepper squid