Stuffed Squid

No really, this is great! It's supposed to be stuffed Kalamari, but I only had squid and squid is well-suited to this kind method of cooking. I just bought a new cookbook I had been coveting while in Australia - a la Greque Our Greek Table written by Pam Talimanidis - an Australian who married a Greek and now lives part of the year in Greece.

I wasn't planning on writing a blog entry on squid, but it worked so well I think it is worth it. The main difference that I know of between squid and Kalamari (for those who may be interested :) ) is that Kalamari have pointed flaps that extend the whole length of the body, whereas in squid they occur only at the narrow end of the body (thank you Stephanie Alexander!). Generally, all the fresh Kalamari I have seen are quite small - the body is only about 10cm long, whereas the squid (frozen) that I bought here were rather large, up to 20cm long in the body. I realise now that when choosing your cephalopod you should go for the smaller specimens, but I don't have a lot of choice.

Another thing, there are 2 main ways of cooking this type of seafood, very fast, or very slow. Salt and pepper kalamari is one of my favourite dishes! When it's done properly the kalamari is really tender and the batter should be crisp and spicy. Stir-frying is also ok, but I have never eaten or tried cooking braised kalamari or squid......until now. The main mistake I made was putting far too much stuffing in the squid, they were like little footballs! not so very bad, but probably better if the stuffing has more room to expand. btw the rest of the meal was lamb keftethes, eggplant dip, olives, bread and wine.

Enough rabbiting, here's the recipe:

Stuffed Squid with Rice and Herbs
1 cup medium grain rice
250ml extra virgin olive oil
8 spring onons, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup dill
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
8x15cm Kalamari (body only)
2 teaspoons tomato paste
690ml water

1. Wash the rice, then drain.
2. heat 2 tbls of oil in a pan and fry the onions until soft and transluscent (about 8 min.) Add garlic and herbs followed by the rice. season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and let cool.
3. Stuff 1 tablespoon of the mixture into each kalamari. Because I had 2 very large squid I estimated the amount of stuffing I needed (over estimated) and then stuffed (overstuffed) them, securing the end with a toothpick.
4. Dissolve the tomato paste in some of the water in the bottom of a casserole dish, add the kalamari (squid) and add the rest of the water and oil.
5. Put the lid on and bring to the boil, and then simmer for 40 minutes until the kalamari are tender and the rice cooked. My squid were so large I cooked them for nearly an hour (can you overcook squid?) and then reduced the liquid to make a sauce.

Here's a tip from the book I should have followed ;) you need double the amount of water to rice plus 190ml extra water for the sauce. Exactly how much rice I needed was more trial and error........

Yoghurt cake with ouzo-lemon syrup

Cake Challenge.
I find baking a bit of a challenge - I have two different approaches: One, I blithely throw myself into the recipe, cut a few corners, 'improve' the recipe a bit and wonder why it doesn't work, or, two, I slavishly follow the recipe and still mess it up! btw, confessions of an Australian, I can't make ANZAC biscuits....well I can, if you like the traditional 'concrete style' biscuit.

I've decided to take a step back from the dreaded biscuit challenge and start with cakes. I absolutely love any dessert with lemon, and a lemon cake made with yoghurt is perfect. I have a recipe for such a cake drizzled with an ouzo-lemon syrup from "The Olive and the Caper" by Susanna Hoffman (see below).

I would like to try and alter the recipe a little (since I actually made it successfully the first time) by replacing some or all of the butter with olive oil and adding honey. I think the syrup can be changed as well by replacing some of the sugar with honey. I will add the results of this experiement at th eend of this blog. Until then, here is the original cake recipe, which is delicious!

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs, separated
1 cup yoghurt
1 tablespoon chopped lemon zest
1 3/4 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
ouzo-lemon syrup

1. Grease and flour a 10 inch cake tin and preheat oven to 180 celsius.
   
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy, then beat in the egg yolks. Add yoghurt, zest, then flour, baking powder and salt (pre-sifted together).
3. In a seperate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff ( I add a pinch of creme of tartare), then mix in half the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and then carefully fold the remaining egg whites into the mixture.
4. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for about 45 minutes until a skewer/knife inserted into the middle comes out clean and the sides of the cake come away slightly from the pan.
5. wait 5-10 minutes and then release the springform sides and invert the cake onto a plate - yes it's upside down.
6. spoon a third of the ouzo-lemon syrup over the cake and let it soak for 5-10 minutes. Repeat 2 more times. Then set the cake aside for at least an hour before cutting.

Ouzo-Lemon Syrup
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup ouzo
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon zest

1. put all ingreedients into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer vigourously for 10 minutes until it thickens. Cool and use (or store in the fridge).
   

Chinese Peanut BIscuits

We just arrived back from Malayasia a few days ago...both feeling rather jetlagged, and my sinus infection returned with a vengence, but otherwise intact. Despite sampling foods from a number of rather dubious looking stalls in Melacca and Singapore neither of us succumbed to a stomach bug. My only concern was that I couldn't eat more!

In Melacca we stayed at the most incredible hotel....probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at, The Melacca Majestic. Around the Lounge, Library and Bar area near reception were large glass jars full of snacks such as peanuts, salted plums (not reccommended). coconut caramels and the most amazing little peanut biscuits. I must have scoffed more than my fair share and vowed to find the recipe when I got back to Zürich. It turns out they are Chinese New Year biscuits - Fah Sang Peng, and very popular in Malaysia.

Here's the recipe:
300g Peanuts
250g flour
200g castor sugar
1 tsp salt
250ml peanut oil

Roast the peanuts in a wok/pan until fragrant then finely grind. Add flour, sugar and salt and gradually mix in the oil until the mixture comes together (you may not need all the oil). Then need the dough until the sugar 'melts' and the crystals disappear.

Roll the mixture into little balls (about the size of macadamia nuts), glaze with egg, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 200 celsius.

My impulse buy in Malaysia when I just happened to be wandering through a cooking supply shop was a moon cake mould, and I used this for the biscuits....worked beautifully!

I think these biscuits must be foolproof as I have a rather deplorable record with baking biscuits, yet these turn out rather well.....even Doug likes them!
They are very fragile, I think I need to grind the peanuts finer and then maybe increase the proportion of flour. Here are my final attempts: