blur like sotong

 

This dish had been calling out to me since I happened to watch some cooking show at my parents' place last week. I mean, sotong is my favourite food!

The original recipe from Anne Burrell called for olives though. Yucks. I substituted capers instead and I think the dish turned out more than fine.

My first attempt was a failure though, as I got distracted by chopping the capers while browning the garlic. The chao tar smell lingered in my flat for days. Moral of the story: mise en place is important. I seldom have the patience, but in this case, everything happens so fast that it helps to have all the prep work done before turning on the stove.

Cleaning the sotong can be a major pain, but the savoury, briny sotong juice that you end up with after cooking makes it worthwhile. (Or you could just buy cleaned sotong, if you can find it. I couldn't.)

400g squid (about 5 small ones or 3 big ones)
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and peeled
Red pepper flakes
1 cup white wine
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups salad leaves (I used mesclun)

Clean the squid by pulling out the plasticky spine and the head with all the tentacles. Discard the spine and head. Peel the purplish membrane off the body and slice it lengthwise (ie. not into calamari rings).

Smash the garlic and discard the skin. Roughly chop up the capers.

Heat up a frying pan with the garlic, red pepper flakes and enough oil to coat the bottom and sides on medium high heat. Watch the pan carefully and fish out the garlic cloves when they are golden brown and a lovely smell fills your kitchen.

Throw in the sotong slices -- and jump back with a squeal. They should go from translucent to opaque in under two minutes. Season with salt. Add the wine, capers and lemon juice (my tweak on the recipe, because it seemed to be kinda fishy) and let the sauce reduce to about half. I was worried about the sotong becoming overcooked, so I rescued them from the pan while the sauce simmered.

Pour everything over the salad leaves to wilt them a little and crack some black pepper over the dish before serving.

Note: For those who don't crack open a bottle of wine without a special occasion -- ie. me -- here's a tip from my favourite food blogger, Smitten Kitchen. I used to shy away from recipes which called for one cup of white wine, because it seemed so extravagant, but now I just use Martini Bianco (which won't go bad like wine).