Chipirones en su tinta : Cuttlefish in ink sauce

You might not have ever eaten black food.  This is a good place to start.  It’s a very typical dish; a very small squid, the body stuffed with tentacles and the sauce made using the squid ink. Usually served with white rice - - for the contrast I guess.  I had it a while ago in a restaurant in town.

 

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Chipirones en su tinta : Cuttlefish in ink sauce

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 12 or so chipirones (little squid, cuttlefish) cleaned; 1kg [2#]
• olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped fine
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1/4 C parsely, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1/2 C white wine
• 1/4 C tomato sauce
• 1 package squid ink

Procedure

1. Clean the chipirones; see notes
• chop
2. Oil in a pan
3. Onion in the pan, soften
4. Add 1 of the garlic cloves
5. Add the tentacles
6. Sauté 5 minutes; just to color
7. Add the parsely, stir
8. Stuff into the bodies of the squid; seal the open ends (toothpicks?)
9. In that same pan, more oil, fry the squid for color – set aside
10. In that same pan, put the other onion - soften
11. Add the other garlic clove
12. Add the green pepper
13. And the wine and tomato sauce
14. Dilute the ink in a bit of wine and add that
15. Add the rest of the wine
16. Cook a good while (15 min)
17. Puree the sauce; maybe with a stick mixer
18. Add the squid to the sauce; bring to a boil and simmer 20 minutes
19. Remove the toothpicks

Done

Notes

1. Clean chipirones by removing the tentacles, eyes, beak and bone.  Keep the tentacles and the pouch
2. If there’s not enough sauce when you add the squid to at least 1/2 cover then then use more wine or some fish stock

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Chipirones : Cuttlefish

A mentioned midday menus for 10 € the other day.  If you go for a place that offers 15€ menus you get yet another level of establishment.

Sort of a classy place.

You get a starter, second and a main course.  I selected the Chipirones as a main; better known as Cuttlefish.

You probably don’t eat a lot of black food but they make the sauce with the squid ink (and some onions very very finely chopped)  – which contrasts well with the traditional white rice it’s served with.

That’s a sort of squid; the tentacles are chopped and stuffed into the “sac” of the beast.  Mine was mixed with some spices and a few pine nuts.

Really, trust me, it’s very good.

Pota - Squid

This is a big squid; much reduced in size. Usually they're about half a meter [2 foot].


This is what it looks like cooked (still in the pan). The white cubes are the squid.


Step 1: drop by your local grocery and get a pound of fresh squid (easy to do here in Spain).

Then cook the following dead easy recipe (3 ingredients [plus salt and, as usual, olive oil])

Fried Squid - Pota

Ingredients

• ¼C olive oil
  
• ½ kg squid (long, square, strips {as purchased})
• 1 onion, brunoise
• 2 red peppers, roasted
• salt (to taste)
  

Procedure

1. Cut squid strips into 2,5cm [1"] cubes
2. Oil into the pan, fry squid, medium high heat
   
• Until it picks up a little color; this may take a while
• Set aside
  
3. Fry the onions until soft and going golden (in the pic mine a slightly burnt - we chefs prefer to avoid this but if it happens we call it "caramelized" - sounds better than "burnt")
4. Return squid (and any liquids) to pan - stir around
5. Add the roasted red peppers - stir around
6. A ¼ tsp salt might go good right here

You're done

Notes

1. Squid shrinks when you cook it
2. When frying nothing happens until the squid starts releasing its fluids, then these fluids reduce and the squid starts cooking in its own juices - - sort of a self-made sauce develops and the squid starts to brown, in spots, a little
3. The oil and the squid juices and the red pepper juices make the sauce delicious
   

Shrimp & Squid Skewers: Gambas y Calamar Brochette

On the theme of "know your food". If you're going to eat it buy it with its eyes still intact (probably this rule does not apply to beef). In this case.. shrimp/s (prawns).
I'm not actually certain what the difference between shrimp & prawns is.


Rip off their heads, peel away their shells and strip out their intestinal tract (devein). Here shown with the accompanying chopped up squid rings.


Marinate and grill (in this case, under the grill in the oven 'cause I didn't feel like cranking up the bar-b-que).

Shrimp & Squid Skewers: Gamba y Calamar Brochettes

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 16 wooden skewers
• 1 kilo prawns (32 or so)
• 150 gr squid rings [8 oz] (better would be whole baby squids)

Marinade

• 1 T ginger powder (better would be an inch or two of fresh, grated)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 T soy sauce (better would be light soy)
• 2 T sherry (or sweet sherry but not cream sherry)
• 1 t sesame oil
• 1 T olive oil, virgin
  
• 2 t chili oil
• 1 chili (deseeded)
• 2 T corn flour

• 4 T sesame seeds
• 1 lemon

Procedure

1. Peel and devein prawns
2. Cut squid rings into prawn length pieces
3. Whisk marinade ingredients together
   
4. Marinate prawns and squid for 1, 2, 3, 4 hours (turn/stir once)
5. Soak wooden skewers in water for ½ hour
6. Add sesame seeds to the marinade & stir
7. Stab shrimp, squid, shrimp, squid, shrimp & squid onto each skewer
8. Lay all these out on an oiled grilling tray and drizzle marinade remains over
• Drizzle additional olive oil if you're short of marinade
9. Put them under the grill at about 8 cm [3"] for 8 minutes
• Too close and they'll burn
  
• Turn them, another 5 minutes grilling
• Times vary widely according to the power of the grill; you want to do these slowish
10. Wedge the lemon into 8 and serve on the side (for squeezing over the prawns)

Notes

• Serve on top of baby salad greens (the marinade and lemon becomes its dressing)
• Don't grill these too fast, they'll dry out
• Barbecuing is good too

Calamares con Cebolla Oporto: Squid with Port Onions

Oh, you're gonna love this. Try it at home.



These are rings of squid, fried, over sauteéd onions (with squid ink & port) with a few prawns thrown in for colour. Yes, those onions under the rings in the picture are black. You probably don't eat a lot of (deliberately) black food do you?

I did a search on the web for Squid with Port Onions and came up with exactly zero hits so I guess this counts as an original recipe.

Calamares con Cebolla Oporto

Serves: 2

Ingredients

• oil (olive, virgin)
• 1 onion
• ¼ t salt
• 1 package squid ink
  
• ¼ C dry white wine
• ¼ C Port (sweet)
  
  
• oil
  
• 400 g Squid (cut into rings) [¼#]
• ¼ C dry white wine
• 100 g Prawns [3oz]
• ¼ C dry white wine

Procedure

1. oil into a pan
   
2. sauté onions
• until translucent and soft
  
3. add salt
4. add wine and squid ink, stir to dissolve
   
5. add port
• bring up to a decent boil then lower heat to medium and...
  
• reduce to sauciness
  
• set aside, in the oven, covered with foil, at about 100 C [200F]
  
  
6. oil into a frying pan
7. add squid
   
8. fry lightly for 10 min
• they will shrink, release juices and brown just very slightly
  
9. deglaze the pan with white wine (leave the squid in there)
   
• stir around to completely deglaze
10. reduce the resulting juice to thick sauciness
    
11. add prawns
• stir around until they've changed colour
  
12. add more wine
    
13. reduce the sauce again and at the same time you're cooking the prawns through
    

Notes

1. Squid rings are usually about 1cm wide [½"]
   
2. present the squid & prawns on top of the onions
3. typically served with rice
• but I served with garbanzo beans spiced up with a little bit of cumin
  
4. this is a one pan dish if you wipe and rinse the pan between doing the onions and the squid