Home › When Tarzan Entertains › Stuffed Squids
Stuffed Squids
2 THIN SLICES COOKED HAM, CHOPPED I TEASPOON MINCED PARSLEY SALT AND PEPPER JUICE OF 1/2 LEMON 1/3 CUP FINE BREAD CRUMBS FLOUR 3 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL 1/4 CUP WHITE WINE 1/4 CUP OYSTER LIQUOR OR FISH BROTH I ONION, CHOPPED I GREEN PEPPER, CHOPPED Remove the ink or sepia sacks from squids, then take out the cartilage. Cut off the octopus-like tenacles, as an orgre would a baby's fingers; chop them, mix with chopped ham, bread crumbs, parsley, and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper, and stuff the snug, hollow squid bodies with this mixture. The prepared squid bodies make natural pockets for filling.
Roll in flour and fry in hot olive oil. Place close together in a baking pan with broth and wine; season with salt and pepper put in oven, basting occasionally. Keep closely covered. Fry onion in olive oil left in frying pan, add green pepper. When squids are done turn the liquid in which they have baked into the frying pan. Lay the squids on a hot platter and pour contents of frying pan over.
A Mediterranean stuffed-squid braise written in the loose style of its period: no squid quantity, no oven temperature, no timing. The ingredient list suggests a stuffing for roughly 8 to 12 medium squid, about 2 lb cleaned.
- The hinge: fast or slow, never in betweenSquid is tender for the first two or three minutes of cooking and again after about 45 minutes of gentle braising. The window between is rubber. Since the bodies are floured, fried, then baked, commit to the long side: cover tightly and give them 40-50 minutes.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A covered braise of this kind wants 325-350F, hot enough to hold a bare simmer in the pan and no hotter.
- Buying and cleaningAsk for whole squid rather than cleaned tubes, since the tentacles are the stuffing. Pull the head and innards from the body, remove the transparent quill (the "cartilage"), cut the tentacles free just below the eyes, and squeeze out the small hard beak at their centre. The ink sac is the silvery-black sliver against the guts; discard it or save it for a separate dish.
- Oyster liquorThe liquid drained from shucked oysters. Bottled clam juice is the closest ready substitute; a light fish stock works as the recipe itself allows. Both are salty, so hold back on seasoning until the sauce has reduced.
- Stuff loosely and pinThe bodies shrink considerably as they cook and split if packed tight. Fill them about two-thirds and close the opening with a toothpick, or the stuffing will be in the pan rather than the squid.
- Flouring wet squidDry the bodies thoroughly before flouring or the coating will slide off in the oil and spatter badly. The fry here is for colour only, less than a minute a side.
- Finishing the sauceThe onion and green pepper want 8-10 minutes in the pan to soften properly before the braising liquid goes in; the original's brief note undersells this. Reduce the combined liquid until it coats a spoon.
- YieldServes four as a main course with bread or rice, six as a first course.
Stuffed squid belongs to the whole northern Mediterranean coast, from Spanish calamares rellenos through Italian calamari ripieni to the Greek versions baked in wine; the stuffing shifts from region to region, and the method here, chopping the tentacles back into the filling so nothing is wasted, recurs widely across those traditions. The oyster liquor in particular suggests an American kitchen adapting the idea with what was on hand, though green pepper is used around the Mediterranean too. Squid was cheap and little used in most English-speaking households well into the twentieth century, often sold as bait or to immigrant communities, which may be part of why a book of this sort presents it with such theatrical relish rather than as an everyday supper.