Cooking with seafood is often quite daunting for me, particularly because I’m not overly experienced with it. That being said, my family and I have always loved our Seafood and after a trip to Greece last year I reaffirmed my desire to try my hand at cooking stuffed squid tubes. The only thing I was missing was a great recipe (squid tubes are a tad expensive so I was keen to have a recipe that was tried and tested and that I’d know would be a big hit with my family) and luckily, after watching an episode of My Kitchen Rules I felt inspired. Two of the shows contestants cooked a beautiful Mediterranean style stuffed squid, serving it on a rich tomato salsa and a crisp salad. I knew this would be a great dish to cook for lunch for my mum this past weekend (here in Aus it was Mothers Day!). I did have a few variations on the original recipe which can be found here, so here is my take on the girls recipe! Originally I wasn’t going to make the salsa but in the end i am so glad that i did! It really lifts the dish and looks fantastic for presentation!
Hope you enjoy and happy baking!
What you’ll need:
- 5 whole baby squid, cleaned
- 1 tbs olive oil
Squid Stuffing:
- 120g medium grain rice
- 6 Green Prawns, peeled
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 250g chorizo, chopped
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 30g chopped pine nuts, toasted
- 30g sultanas
- ¼ cup finely chopped parsley
Tomato Salsa
- 3 tomatoes diced into large chunks
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 small red onion, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 1 red chilli, finely chopped
- ¼ cup pitted black olives, chopped (I used mixed Olives)
What I did:
To make stuffing:
1. Cook rice in a saucepan of boiling until tender (about 10 mins). Drain and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add chorizo and onion. Fry until onion is soft and brown and then add your peeled prawns (cut into smaller chunks). Cook until prawn is cooked through before adding your cooked rice, pine nuts, sultanas and parsley.
3. Leave to cool completely.
4. Once cool, spoon mixture into squid tubes, firmly compacting it and then seal the end with a toothpick.
For Salsa:
1. Preheat your oven to 200C. Place your diced tomatoes onto a tray, drizzle with a little oil and roast until tender and slightly collapsing.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook your onion, garlic and chilli until soft. Stir in tomatoes and olives. Season. I also added a little parsley and lemon juice for flavour but thats up to your tastes.
Cooking the Squid:
1. Rub squid all over with oil and season. Meanwhile heat your pan to a very high heat. Add the squid and cook for about 5 minutes, turning so that all sides are cooked through (you can tell that its cooked when it turns from translucent to a white colour). Ensure that you don’t overcook the squid. I found it hard to get the ends to cook as they couldn’t touch the pan due to the toothpicks. To overcome this, remove the toothpicks right at the end of cooking (by now the rice should be cooked and hold in place) and then tilt the ends so that they touch the pan and cook.
2. When serving, make thick cuts in each squid tube so that you can see stuffing, without cutting all the way through. Lay onto plate on top of the salsa
Enjoy!!
amateurbakerandme 