Sea food and eat it
Impress your friends with this tasty squid dish
Rutherglen’s very own Masterchef contestant, David Banks, will be offering up his tips and recipes for Reformer readers in future editions of the paper. This week, his recipe for Squid with Coriander. For more tips and recipes, you can follow David on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Glasgow_Munchy Both squid and coriander are two food-stuffs which can separate the crowd a bit.
Squid doesn’t taste of much, can be a bit chewy and has the look of something which hasn’t evolved properly.
Unlike any other meat, it lends itself to being cooked either really quickly at a high temperature or stewed really slowly.
Cooking it at a medium heat for a medium amount of time can result in giving it the texture of an old person’s ear lobe!
Although generally more popular than squid, coriander is a big, bold herb which really dominates a dish, more so than the likes of parsley or rosemary.
It also freezes pretty well, if, like myself, you don’t like waste.
I remember watching Rick Stein making a really simple dish consisting of these two ingredients in the back of a pretty rank looking kitchen somewhere in the Med when I was about 10-years-old.
If you love seafood and, in particular, dishes which celebrate the quality and locality of ingredients, check out his old videos on YouTube and head down to your local supermarket to have a go.
This particular dish isn’t pricey, will make your kitchen smell like a fishing village in the south of France and will lubricate all your vital organs with lots of good stuff!
( This recipe feeds four people for lunch) Step 1: Preparing the squid
Ask the person at the fish counter to prepare 500g squid for you and make sure you keep the tentacles.
Chop the body of the squid up in to rings about a pinky finger in thickness and place to one side wi t h the tentacles ( which should be kept whole).
It probably looks like a lot of squid at this point but it reduces down in size. Step 2: Bringing the ingredients together
To a hot wok/ large pan ( not quite smoking) add a good slug of good olive oil and throw in three cloves of chopped garlic, a diced shallot, a chopped chilly and the zest of one lemon.
Fry until the water coming off the squid is almost all evaporated and turn off the heat.
Add a handful of coriander and the juice from a lemon. Step 3: Assembling the dish
Add the squid to four individual bowls, garnish with some more coriander and a final squeeze of lemon juice.
Make sure you are generous with the leftover oil from the wok/pan.
Serve with fresh, crusty bread.