Stuff yer bake

One bag of frozen squid is a little much for one person, so as I was on my own this weekend (the other half was living the high life in London for the weekend) I decided to do two different squid dishes, one for Saturday night and one for Sunday night. I had seen a Nigel Slater recipe for squid on TV a few days ago which got me salivating and I thought I’d give it a try. I did my usual trick of just going from memory and not bothering to look up the recipe so I ended up doing it quite differently.

I made up a similar marinade by pounding up zest of one lemon, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp thyme leaves, half a small garlic clove, 2 tbsp olive oil, tsp salt and lots of freshly ground pepper in a pestle and mortar. I then cut open about 6 baby squid and scored it as the recipe suggested, dried it thoroughly and fried in olive oil in a very hot pan. It cooked for only a few minutes until slightly golden and then the hot squid was tossed in the marinade. I then put the squid into a bowl with some salad leaves and tomato and tossed them together to coat the leaves and heaped in onto a plate. The other recipe looks good too… maybe I should try it sometime. 

I have had rather a productive day for a bank holiday, when generally everyone lazes around relishing the fact that it’s another day off the full working week (although I was at work on Sunday so it doesn’t really count for me). I did sleep in just a little but I struggle to get up when it is really humid. It’s been about 20 degrees centigrade here today, which is a big change from just a few weeks ago when we had snow and I don’t think my body has had time to adjust.

First off was a quick trip to the garden centre to try and get my garden sorted for summer. I bought some strawberry plants and some seeds to sow peppers, tomatoes and lettuce and some shrubs for the front garden. I have been a bit lax with the garden this year and it was slowly beginning to look like a poster advertisement for Day of the Triphids. I also had time to squeeze in making a pavlova, which I will post about later. I’m now rewarding my efforts with a glass of wine but sadly it will be my last before my 10k run next Sunday.

I have seen frozen squid in the supermarket on several occasions and since I can’t get any fresh I thought I’d buy some. They were prepared baby squid and I decided they would be very nice pan fried for dinner and served on salad. 

Ingredients 

Around seven prepared baby squid

I bag of salad leaves, eg rocket, spinach, watercress

A handful of black olives, pitted

A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

olive oil

1 tsp of dried chilli flakes

Half a small clove of garlic, crushed

2 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 tsp rock salt

3 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp vinegar 

4 tbsp plain flour

Prepare the salad first by assembling the salad leaves, tomatoes, and olives in a bowl. Make the dressing by putting the garlic, vinegar, soy sauce and freshly ground black pepper into a glass. Add the oils and whisk to combine, set aside. Cut the squid into rings, leaving the tentacles whole and pat them dry. Heat a couple of tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan over a high heat. Mix the flour together with the chilli flakes, salt and pepper and coat the squid with it. Drop the squid into the very hot pan and move it around to get the squid evenly coloured, this should take about four or five minutes and no longer as the squid will become tough. Whisk the salad dressing again to combine, drizzle over the leaves and mix to cover the leaves lightly. Divide between two plates. When the squid is cooked and golden brown take out of the pan, heap on top the leaves and serve immediately. 

Serves two.

I was wondering what to do with the rest of the fabulous crab I got in Devon so I browsed through the selection of cookery books I brought with me and found a crab ravioli recipe from Rick Stein’s Seafood book. I have never been terribly successful at at making ravioli as they are so fiddly and always seem to fall apart on me and I haven’t made fresh pasta in a while so it took me time to get to grips with the pasta machine again. I really need to invest in one of those ravioli tray things as they are supposed to be quite useful.

Apart from the fact that it took me the best part of two hours to make and some of them burst they turned out very nicely. The sauce in particular was simple yet very flavoursome and well worth the wait.

Fresh Pasta

225g Plain flour (type 00)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

2 medium eggs

2 medium egg yolks

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend. Once it has come together, tip out onto a work surface and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Ravioli

175g fresh white crab meat

1 tblsp melted butter

a small sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Parsley and lemon butter

100g butter

2 tblsp chopped flat leaf parsley

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

2 tsps lemon juice

2 garlic cloves very finely chopped

Mix all the ingredients for the ravioli together. Divide the pasta into three or four pieces and roll out in your machine or with a rolling in until quite thin. Keep dusting the pasta with flour to stop it sticking to the rollers. On one half of a sheet of pasta dot a teaspoon of mixture at 3inch intervals. Wet around each mound of crab with a little water, then fold over the other half of the pasta and starting from the inside out press down around the little mounds pushing out all the air so you have no bubbles in the ravioli. This is the complicated bit and would be so much more simple with a ravioli tray if you have one. Make sure that you flour each one well so that they don’t stick together as they will tear easily. Once your have used up all the mixture get some salted boiling water ready and add the ravioli. Cook for about three minutes, then drain.

While they are cooking make the butter dressing. Simply melt the butter with all the other ingredients, seasoning to taste and once the ravioli is drained and plated up, spoon over the top and serve. Then sit down for a well deserved rest.