Squid Part II

Obviously marmalade and honey are the best things to put on toast because bears have the best taste in breakfast condiments.  Marmite forcing themselves on Paddington was the ultimate humiliation; due to children's TV becoming increasingly dominated by nonsensical rubbish they slipped him a few quid to endorse their horrible product.  His heart was never in it, though, and he spat it out straight after takes.  Also, I like how my jar is the one integral to the structural stability of that stack.

So, having made squid ink tagliatelle I needed something to serve it with.  Obviously, a dish with squid made perfect sense.  Despite having prepared and cooked squid many times before, this was the first time I'd ever slow cooked it for a long time.  I had been thinking of taking it in some sort of bouillabaise direction, but in the end decided to keep it relatively simple.  It turned out magnificently.

Without further ado, recipe; (serves 4)

3 whole medium sized squid
3 small, or 2 medium fennel bulbs, sliced
1 large white onion, finely chopped
600ml lobster stock, reduced by half
200ml red wine
600g tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and crushed
salt and pepper
4 tbsp olive oil

Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a large, heavy based saucepan (Le Creuset are obviously the best pans in the world).  Finely dice the onion and garlic and sweat for approximately 10 minutes until soft and translucent, but not coloured.  Place the tomatoes in a large bowl and pour over sufficient boiling water to cover.  Leave for about a minute, enough for the skins to split.  Remove the skins, quarter, remove the seeds and discard them.  Roughly chop the flesh and add to the pan.  Leave on a gentle simmer for 30-40 minutes.  Meanwhile, prepare the squid.

Preparing squid is a whole lot easier than it may seem.  A squid is a very anatomically simple creature, and consists of predominantly two parts; the main body of flesh, and the tentacles, head and insides, which are all connected and can be pulled out in one go.  Start off by, with a sharp knife, removing the tentacles from just above the eyes.  This may take the squid's mouth and beak with it, in which case gently squeeze the end you've just cut.  If a small, hard beak protrudes out, remove it. 

You can then remove the wings from the side of the body.  You should be able to find a gap around the wings through which to penetrate the thin membrane that covers the body and remove it.  The two wings can also be eaten, but need to be separated from the membrane.  These can simply be cut away from the part that was attached to the main body, which is slightly firmer than the rest of the flesh.

The plasticy quill can be easily pulled out from inside the body.  You then need to clean the main body of the squid and remove any further innards and membranes.  The best way to do this is to run it under a cold tap.  The flesh should be smooth and unblemished.  If you intend to cut it into rings, as I am doing here, you can turn the body inside out by pushing your finger into the bottom point of the body and forcing it in on itself, where you can then clean away all the various squid entrails inside.  This is open to all manner of overtly vulgar sexual imagery, the sort of depths that not even Nigella Lawson would plumb (but Kirsty probably would).  Once every extraneous part has been removed, turn the body back the right way, and slice into rings 1cm thick.  You now have your squid pieces ready to cook.

                                                 Squid; Body, wings, tentacles

Reduce the stock by about half in a small saucepan to intensify the flavour.  I've used lobster stock because that's what I had, although any kind of fish stock will do.  However, I think the rich, intense flavour from a shellfish stock suits this dish better than a standard fish stock would.  Strain the stock through a sieve to remove any bits still present and add to the tomato sauce, along with the wine, fennel seeds and bay leaves.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and briefly fry the squid pieces - no more than 20 seconds each side and add to the liquid.  Heat on a gentle simmer (the kind where maybe a few bubbles break the surface every minute) for at least 2 hours.  About an hour before ready to serve, slice the fennel bulbs and add to the pan, along with the chopped greens from the top of the bulb.  This should enable it to cook through, whilst still providing enough bite to counterbalance the meltingly soft squid. 

I only cooked this for 2 hours, but ideally I would have cooked it for about double that.  As a result, the liquor didn't reduce as much as I would have liked, so I separated the liquor away into another pan and reduced it over a high heat.  This also gave me a perfect excuse to whisk in a large knob of butter.

I served this with the squid ink tagliatelle I made yesterday, which took three minutes to cook, so you can wait until the squid is perfectly done and take off the heat before cooking the pasta.  Pasta is best cooked in an abundance of boiling, well salted water, so use your biggest pan available.  Theo Randall advises 4 litres of water for every 250g of fresh, or 400g of dried pasta, and quite frankly as far as I'm concerned, Theo Randall is the authoritative voice on pasta.  I didn't weigh the amount of pasta I had, but I cooked it in roughly 7 litres of water.