Squid: Prepping and Cooking Sea Monsters

That's right, squid. It's an ingredient Albert, a Korean, was concerned my Italian family would not be able to stomach. But, we like it and have ordered plenty of calamari appetizers. You know what we don't do? Cook it at home. But you know who did?

That's right me. And the squid I cooked didn't come cleaned and prepared. To make my squid salad, I had to clean and cut the squid. Why did I buy squid? Because I like it, because it was cheap (less than 2 dollars), and because I was inspired that I could do it based on an episode of Alton Brown's show Good Eats on squid of course.

Prepping squid is not for the faint of heart. I could see how the whole process might dampen a weaker, more squeamish appetite than my own. But, I was not deterred. Here's how to prep squid:

First you have to pull the tentacles from the tubes. Next, you can chop the tentacles from the body and maybe cut them in half. I like to eat tentacles, mmm, tentacles. Then, you prep the tube by fishing out all the guts with your clean fingers. Yes, they're slimy. Make sure to remove the quill, which is cartilage I think. It should slide out. Finally, you need to skin the squid tube by peeling it with your fingers. You may need to slit the skin with a knife. Pulling off the fins on the side is optional. The squid can then be cut into rings or strips with a sharp knife.

But cutting the squid isn't half as important as cooking them. Squid will become rubbery unless they are cooked either very quickly or for a very long time. I went with fast cooking, partly because I couldn't find any slow recipes.

I boiled the squid for my salad for about 1 minute then drained them and put them in an ice bath. This stopped the cooking process rendering my squid very tender. They tasted of the sea and complemented a salad of greens, tomato, red bell pepper, green onion, and homemade croutons perfectly. I dressed it simply in red wine vinegar and olive oil. I was pretty impressed with myself for cooking squid. Here you can see a little of my salad:

The following day, I cooked the remainder of the squid by seasoning it with soy sauce and stir frying it for about a minute. It wasn't quite as tender as the day before, but it wasn't bad either.

If you're a squid lover and not squeamish, try cooking squid. It's an adventure in every package. Besides, the sea is full of them, so it's a sustainable choice.