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........