While the grocery store had both squid and cuttlefish, we ended up buying cuttlefish over the squid for two reasons – the cuttlefish are significantly cheaper and require much less work to clean up. Yeah, squid rings are prettier, more elegant, than cuttlefish strips, but honestly, with just the hubby, do I care that much? Ah, sadly, no.
So, with cuttlefish in hand, I had no idea what to do with ’em.
Welll, okay, some idea. 🙂 I wanted something that tasted good. 😀
So I did a search on Teh Interwebs and came across this recipe. Naturally, I jacked it up a few notches in the spice category – we love our flavour, after all!
Here’s the result.
Deep Fried Cuttlefish
Ingredients:
- 500 grams cuttlefish or squid (calamari)
- 1 eggs
- 60 grams flour
- 60 ml water
- 1 small onion, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon red chilli pepper powder
- 0il for deep-frying
- parsley sprigs to garnish (opt.)
- lime or lemon wedges to garnish (opt.)
Directions
- Clean and cut squid into rings or cuttlefish into strips – thinner is better. Season with salt, pepper and red chilli pepper powder. Set aside.
- Beat egg, add flour and water and beat until smooth. Mix in onion and garlic.
- Heat oil for deep-frying to 425°F. Dip squid rings in batter. Or, if you’re lazy like me, dump the cuttlefish strips into the batter, stir around, and fish ’em out one or two at a time until you have enough for a batch.
- Add to oil and deep fry 3 to 4 minutes, until light brown. Drain.
- Garnish with parsley and lemon wedges.
- Serve hot.
If you don’t have red chilli pepper powder, use cayenne or paprika.
If you don’t like spicy food like we like spicy food, tone it down. Cut down on the red chilli pepper and black pepper as necessary.
Fahim and I loved these. Not too batter-y, but batter-y enough to hold spices and flavour, and they had nice flavour. Thinner strips were more tender.
Will I make these again? You bet! That’s not the real queston, though. The real question is, how many will I snack on while I’m making them and how much will be left for the actual, you know, meal? These are seriously addicting. Seriously. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is about these other than they’re just that good. Okay, I’ll try. 😀
It’s a perfect blend of flavours. There ya go, me at my most eloquent. 😀
Would this be like an appetizer or a main dish. My step mom is Filipino and I would love to make this for her. What would be a good type of main dish to make this with if it is an appetizer? I’m off all day on Wednesday and I plan to make it then. I think it would be Thursday in your neck of the woods.
You could also Shake n’ Bake em by putting the batter in a ziplock bag putting the pieces in the bag. Seal and shake until pieces are covered.
Rosemerry, we had it as the main meat dish, but it could just as easily go as an appetizer, methinks. For accompanying dishes, honestly, I don’t know anything else Filipino – I tend to mix & match cultural dishes a fair bit. I think I served it with pasta & tomato sauce, but it could just as easily go with rice & curries or Mediterranean food.