Friday, January 29, 2010

Calamari - Nigella Style

The theme is Happy Hour over at at I Heart Cooking Club. Swing over and see what everyone has prepared. Natashya did a bang up job describing Nigella with the best pouting lips, the push-up bra....perfect!

We are fans of calamari in this household and try and get it as an appie when we go out. Especially the tentacles...yum..So, this seemed a good Nigella recipe to knock off my list in the Express book. Happy Hour at Squirrel Head Manor :-)



Grab your ingredients......



Tip roughly one cup of oil (Nigella calls for peanut oil, I used vegetable oil) into a saucepan. If your squid is not sliced up as mine wasn't, cut the tubes into rings.



Put 1/4 cup corn meal, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, and 2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning into a freezer bag. Add calamari rings and tentacles. Toss to coat.



Drop calamari gently into oil after oil is fiercely hot. This will provide a good crunch. Fry up in batches. About 4 minutes each...according to your preference.

From Calamari


Lift the calamari out of oil with slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.



Serve with garlic mayonnaise.

For the garlic mayo: grate three cloves garlic (Nigella calls for 1 clove..phhhww...can't get too much garlic in my opinion) and stir this into 1/2 cup mayo.





Nigella Express, Everyday Easy Section, page 16. Another one I can cross off.

12 comments:

  1. I love love love calamari but it's one of those things I only ever get when I go out to eat. I'm a happy camper at the local greek place with a plate of calamari and some saganaki to share. Good job - looks yummy!

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  2. I love calamari too, but unfortunately I'm the only one in my house who does. I bet the cornmeal makes them nice and crunchy.

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  3. Man, you are getting spammed quite a a bit, aren't you?

    I LOVE calamari! In fact, I had it for lunch today and it was pretty good! I've had better, I make better, but I have also had way worse. Squid are not easily come by here, though, which is unfortunate.

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  4. Cathy, what is saganaki? Sushi? This was great but you may be better to get it out - I made WAY too much!

    Janel - thank you, it was really good and the corn meal did in fact make it just crunchy enough.

    Wandering Coyote, Yeah! I am getting spam and so I will be forced to use word verification. Oh well.....I'm getting tired of deleting the crap that ends up in comments.

    I had to buy frozen squid from our local seafood market - but it was good.

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  5. That looks lovely T add a good squeeze of lemon and I'd be happy to polish off the lot!

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  6. Pierce - Saganaki is greek cheese, pan fried and then they light (yep, fire and cheese) ouzo on top....yum!

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  7. Laquet - it would make a good appetizer for us before pub crawling. Does Simon like calamari?

    Thanks Cathy. That sounds amazingly good! I looked for you on Facebook...no luck.

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  8. Really? Odd - should be able to search me under my name. Maybe just try my last name?

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  9. I agree - you can never have too much garlic!
    Great choice - and so brave! I really need to get more experience cooking seafood this year.

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  10. I love calamari, any style...

    but this is really great for fried calamari because I can't eat wheat, so a cornmeal recipe is wonderful...

    I actually almost always have calamari in the freezer so I'll be shaking it up next time...

    I always do the same thing with it...it's my quick and delicious lunch food...

    yours is a bit more complex

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  11. Truth be told, I've never tried calamari before. I would probably try it if someone else cooked it, but I don't know about doing it all by myself. Either way, it looks like you did a fabulous job frying it up!!

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