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Calamari alla diavola: a devilish approach to squid

The bottarga, trust me, is nice and dessicated in my fridge. While I wait for the right occasion to make the spaghetti bottarga (apologies for the delay), I want to show you a classic simple recipe for cooking calamari. Any kind of squid can be used. I used Loligo squid recently and had excellent results. When purchasing the squid, make sure that the skin is not peeling off: it’s a sure sign of freshness.

Start by cleaning the squid. Stick your fingers up in its “head” (yep), and empty it. Then pull the “bone” out. Finally, carve the eyes out. Remove the beak at the intersection of the tentacles. I usually separate the head from the tentacles in this process. Leave the skin on. Then:

  1. Make a soffritto with a rosemary branch, a clove of garlic and abundant chilli (it’s meant to be spicy). This means heating up extra-vigin olive oil in a pan on a medium flame, then adding these ingredients to lightly fry without burning;
  2. Put the squid on the pan. It takes only 4-5 minutes in total to cook. As soon as it changes colour, pour half glass of white wine (or less) and let it evaporate. Heat should be medium-high.
  3. When the wine has evaporated and the 4-5 minutes are over, you are done!

If you find it hard to chew, you might have overcooked it. In that case, you can either get over it, or put it back on the pan and cook it on low heat for another 40 minutes, approximately. After a prolonged time, your squid will be soft again, although it will lose its texture.

Fish stock: a simple secret for outstanding dishes

Making a stock instead of buying an industrial one is easy, cost-efficient and it gives a sensible edge to your dishes. In his Oltre il Fornello (Beyond the stove), Gualtiero Marchesi describes how to make it.

  1. Wash the fish head (removed of its gills) and bones thoroughly, thus removing most of the blood;
  2. Grease up a pot with butter and put some finely chopped veggies in it (e.g. leeks or onions) to sweat, as in to release their liquids without getting brown. Make sure that the flame must be low enough to allow this.
  3. After that (no need to wait), add the head and bones too (chop them if possible), so they can sweat and dry up as well;
  4. Once their liquids from from fish and veggies have evaporates, add half a cup of white wine (or more if you feel it is not enough);
  5. After the white wine has evaporated, cover with water and add herbs. These are usually a bouquet garni, aka parsley’s stems, a little thyme branch and a piece of bay leaf.
  6. Let it boil for half an hour and frequently remove them foam emerging on the surface (or foam it);
  7. Before filtering it, push vigorously on the carcass and on the veggies so as release all their juices.

A final note: different classes of fish are best suited for different types of fish stock. The tastiest ones (e.g. red mullet, scorpion fish) are well-suited for soup-oriented fish stock. Flatheads are one of the midrange options, making a great all-round stock. Avoid the most delicate specimens such as sea breams, sea bass and freshwater fishes; they don’t provide much flavour.

Your fish stock is now ready to give flavour to soups, sauces and even baked fish! Do not salt it, as you will put salt in the final dish that your stock is being used for. Do not exceed in the use of veggies and herbs: they are not the protagonists. Freeze the stock if you want to it to last for longer.