SciFi Squid

Howdy! Yesterday, Sunday, we were off to the fish market as more often (usual?) in the weekends. We were gonna get some 'flat' fish to fry with a coriander & lime panko-breadcrumbed crust...and some already-fried fish (but no chips) for lunch! ^^ Gurnard as usual, with some tartare sauce, in the -albeit weak- spring sun in the harbour! Woohoo. :) Not bad!

When we were at the market, my eye fell on some arrow squids (..hm that sounds a bit gross). I've been preparing squids for a couple of years now, and once you get over the sci-fi element of it, you realise that squid really is a very versatile ..fish? ..sea-creature? Food! :D

In this post, I'll go through the different preparation steps for squid, to end up with a beautifully easy and tasty stir-fry recipe (which I made up & made yesterday). Not for the faint-hearted! But here we go:

SciFi Squid Preparation
First, one finds the squid and placeth it on a board:



Get ready to get your hands dirty. Grab the squid by the tentacles ("grab 'im by the beans!" ;P)(sorry in-joke), and try to pull out most of the intestines out of its..head/hat. Also be careful not to break any of them, as it can get quite messy. Cut off the tentacles below the eyes (again -sorry slightly alienesque- be careful not to hit the eyes. Believe me.). Pick up the tentacles, spread them out, and in the center you'll find the squid's beak. Take it out (you should be able to do this just by hand). You should have something like this now:



Alright. Still with me? Awesome. Time for the yucky bit ("What, that comes only now?!" ..sorry. :p). Put the knife inside the head/hat of the squid, and put the tip of the knife at the end of it. Now pull the knife towards you, opening the head/hat in one straight line. You can now fold it open, and remove any remaining yuckies. It's important at this stage to also remove the spine (or any other hard bits you might find). The spine is located along the middle of the hat (kinda where you'd expect it - if you ever had any expectations about squids). On the other side, remove all the skin - you can pull it off, or scrape with a knife. Your squid should be all cleaned by now, and look a bit like this (yeah that totally looks 'clean', doesn't it?):



Yay!! You just cleaned some squid :D Excellent. For $1.67 and the tastes you'll have later on, that was definitely worth it, right? Right? ;) When you cut up the squid for cooking, think about carving a little roster-pattern in the pieces - this makes them curl up nicely when they get cooked/wokked! ->



Thai-inspired stir-fry squid

Ingredients
- Two or more home-prepared squids (it's the best! ^^)
- 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 2 Thai red chillies, chopped up
- Half a white onion, or more
- Some beans (green beans or okra beans)
- Some chopped-up carrot
- Spring onion

- Oyster sauce (1-2 tbsp)
- Fish sauce (1 tbsp)
- Palm sugar, or brown sugar (1 tbsp)
- Soy sauce (1 tbsp)
- Lime juice (a wedge or two)

Method
Heat a wok up till a decent temperature - add some oil (we used canola), and the garlic and chilli. Stir-fry a little, and add the squid. Stir-fry until the squid looks cooked (when it's white, with a little purple (fo' real!), and looks chewy - that is, more firm). Combine all the liquids and the sugar in a little bowl, and add. Fry for a bit, and take the squid out of the wok. Now fry the veggies in the wok, and put the squid back in there when they're nearly ready. Add some more condiments if necessary, and some black pepper. Done! Serve with rice. Easy-peasy and supertasty, too! ^^


We ate this dish with wild rice and stir-fried pineapple. Yuum!!