If you love squid but are freaked out by the prospect of preparing it, fear not! We have a simple (ish) and delicious recipe which will make preparing a squid a doddle and leave you with a flavoursome Mediterranean inspired treat! We combine fresh pan fried squid with paprika potatoes, juicy tomatoes and a vibrant basil and parsley salsa verde, finished off with a squeeze of fresh lime!
Ingredients (serves two):
One medium squid – we used whole, but you can get it prepared if you want
250g baby potatoes
200g good quality baby tomatoes
One banana shallot / red onion
One bunch of coriander leaves
One bunch of parsley leaves (we used a bag from Sainsbury’s weighing 80g for both this and the coriander)
Extra virgin olive oil
Chilli flakes
Sea salt
Black pepper
Smoked paprika powder (you can use normal paprika if you can’t get / don’t like smoked)
Method:
- Combine the coriander leaves, parsley leaves, chilli flakes to taste in a blender / chopper and add 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil. Blend and season with salt and pepper to taste. You are looking for a pesto consistency salsa, so you may need to add more olive oil, depending on how much herb you have. Leftover salsa will keep in the fridge and is great with meat or fish.
- Chop the cherry tomatoes finely as per the image above, and mix with finely sliced banana shallot / red onion, salt, pepper, and some olive oil.
- You can par boil the potatoes for 5 minutes (in salted, boiling water). Once par boiled, cut in half and put into a mixing bowl. Add a tablespoon of olive oil, and a tablespoon of smoked paprika, and some sea salt. Mix with a spoon so the potato is nicely covered in the spice and oil. Add more if you think you need it. Smoked paprika can be strong so it is a matter of personal preference. A quick taste of the coating will determine if you need any more. Place in an oven at 200C for 25 minutes, or until cooked through and nice and crispy on the outside.
- To prepare the squid, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnwFNko6j8&t=449s, in conjunction with our images below. Note, we scored the squid with smaller scores across both ways diagonally as per the images below.
- Once the squid is prepared, wait until the potatoes are done. The squid takes around 30-45 seconds to cook. Heat a pan with some olive oil, wait until it is very hot. Add the squid, it will curl up due to the scoring we did earlier. Stir fry for 30-45 seconds, and add a pinch of paprika and salt. Take off the heat, and assemble with the potato, tomato salsa, salsa verde.
buchbites 