Italy Part 11

Getting Squirmy with Squid!


Curiously, I peeled back the lid of the soggy, aqua blue cardboard box to take my first peak at the sea creatures that I was going to be preparing for the following day's dinner. It had been a hot afternoon and with a short walk home from my neighborhood grocery store, the frozen mass of squids had begun to thaw, making my fabric grocery bag smell like spoiled fish parts. Can't they at least package them in a plastic liner?! I decided to dump the solid block into a large pyrex dish and left them out to thaw completely while I prepared their marinade and other parts of the meal.

I was making Grilled squid with salsa verde (p. 123), to be served along with Bean and rosemary dip (p. 88) to accompany some left over Focaccia bread, salad, and some Macerated oranges (p. 143) with Almond semifreddo (p. 142) for dessert.  It was a Thursday. Spending the day in the kitchen with NPR radio is my usual desire during these long days while Joe is admitting, or in other words, working a 16-hr shift at the hospital. I wanted to make something special for us to look forward to for Friday in celebration of his last day as an internal medicine intern (until September...)!  As the squids slowly shed their ice blanket, I was mixing their lemony marinade, pureeing the salsa verde, whipping cream and egg whites for the semifreddo, and slicing orange wedges.

Three pounds of frozen squid. 

Three pounds of thawed squid.

Once all of these additional recipes were prepared and properly stored in the freezer/fridge, the remains of my simple dinner finished, and all of the dishes cleaned, I once again stood over the dish teaming with squids. Other than eating fried calamari, which is so chopped and breaded that it doesn't resemble its original form in the least, I could only recollect handling squid in my college biology dissection lab. Standing over these cephalopod mollusks, now soft and slimy, I admired their odd physiology. Their ten extremities (eight arms and two tentacles) strayed carelessly from the base of their heads, entangling other squid's arms. Their heads were attached to inner organs hidden within a long, smooth hood.  I reached down with both my hands and dug my fingers into them, feeling their freckled skin and admiring their tiny jaws located in the middle of the base of their legs. It wasn't until I picked a single specimen up to study in greater detail that I noticed the relatively large, doll-like eye balls that were implanted within the head region. My stomach churned. Their sour stench suddenly bloomed in my nostrils, and all I could focus on where 20 pairs of dull pupils staring up at me. I'm going to need my apron... and a fan in this kitchen. 

I was beginning to question why I hadn't purchased the neighboring box of squids on the
frozen grocery store shelf labeled, "cleaned, cut, and ready for cooking!"
After personally experiencing these cleaning and cutting processes,  "fingernail scrubber"
and "sugar scrub" was scribbled down, and underlined, next to the ingredients list of
this recipe as a reminder of the contagious stink that squids posses. 

I'll save you the gory details from converting those limp, slimy squids into the familiar smooth muscle rings that are pictured below, but it did require a full kitchen wipe down and hot shower afterwards. In the middle of separating heads from hoods, I was thinking about how glad I was that my dinner partner was out of the house for fear of appetite hinderance!  As for myself, after the initial moment of disgust, I was actually quite pleased with the knowledge gained from the experience. It almost felt like a science experiment, minus sterile gloves and lingering goggle lines. Once the squids were prepared, I put them in a clean pyrex dish and left them to refrigerate in a minced garlic, oregano, lemon juice and olive oil marinade until the following evening.

With all of the preparation that was completed Thursday night, Friday's dinner was a breeze! The grilling steps were quite simple. Again, having no "real" grill, I heated my cast iron panini grill on the stove. After draining the marinade from the squid pieces, they were placed in batches onto the hot grill to cook for about 5-7 minutes, turning over a few times. 

I was amazing at how quickly the squid shrunk with heat! 

Once all of the squid pieces had been grilled, they were placed onto a serving dish and lightly seasoned with salt and fresh cracked pepper while hot. The Salsa verde, composed of blended mint, parsley, basil, capers, anchovies, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil, was generously poured over them and tossed to coat. The final presentation required fresh lemon slices. My husband was quite curious about this recipe, trying to remember if he had ever tasted calamari before. He has whole-heartedly embraced the tasting adventures that accompany this trip through Italian cuisine (we keep frozen pizzas in the freezer "just in case").  

I challenge you to get squirmy with some squid this summer (or get the pre-prepared stuff)!
This dish resonated with flavors and a lemon-garlic fragrance that brought the
Mediterranean Sea right to the dinner table.
 It also gives quite a topic for dinner conversation :)

For laughs, 

Naxos, Greece 2008.

Me and a handsome octopus hanging outside the door of a local seafood restaurant. Later that night, one of my fellow travelers ordered calamari for dinner.  When her order arrived, a giant squid body (about as big as the eight-legged cousin I'm admiring above), was plopped down in front of her.  It was battered and fried but looked as if the cooks just threw a whole squid into the hot oil (no tiny rings that we Americans are so familiar with). The poor girl was so shocked by the site that he burst into tears and excused herself from the table for the remainder of the meal.