How To Handle Squid In Your Kitchen

Oh No! This is NOT about How To Grow Squids In Your Kitchen ^.^

I thought that this article will be very useful for those, who love making sea-food from fresh unready ingredients or for those, who love adventures with unknown food. For me it was the second. I have never cooked sea food before, therefore I can’t yet love it. But i really enjoy experiments in cooking. So, here is the story:

My honey bought fresh squid two days ago. It was surprisingly cheap on the market, so he didn’t hesitate to buy non-skinned one. Having an experience in the past of another squid that died in our fridge within 5 days from purchase (I should have put it into the frizzier), I decided to cook the new one immediately after i remembered about its existence in our refrigerator.

I have to warn you, Handling the Fresh Squid is not very pleasant procedure since it involves cutting flesh, removing eyes  and brrrr, therefore, you have to be prepared for anything. Get your cooking gloves (the soft plastic and transparent ones) and Relax. It doesn’t bite! Often..

You have to start from cutting out and removing the squid body from the tube. It won’t get removed unless you cut the its ligaments from inside. Continue pulling it out and get rid of everything from inside the tube, except for the meat part which is little harder than the rest of innards.

Here is the main part of squid:

As a beginner, it was really hard to know, what is edible and what is not because most of organs are of the same color as meat. I had printed out steps for cleaning, but pictures were not clear enough to identify different organs and parts. But anyway, from what I figured out by myself I was trying to cut it off as meat. The most horrible experience for me was trying to remove the eyeballs from the head. I knew I had to do it to use the whole head meat, but I just couldn’t do it due to being disgusted by the idea of removing someone’s eyes (Yeah, I can never work in a meat shop).

Moreover, I was quite puzzled when I removed the transparent plastic-like stick from the other side of the body tube. It is thin and really long! At first, i thought, maybe this stick is put inside of squid by people when they, suppose, grow them on their own squid farms. But later, I confirmed my another guess, that it was a squid bone, like human spine! I still keep it as a trophy of my 1st squid experience

Next step, I cut off arms/ tentacles, which I used to call “legs” before and voila, we are ready for skinning.

In order to effortlessly skin the squid parts you have to put salt on the skin surface. Don’t put too much and not too little too. You can also rub salt into the skin very little. And then, with the help of knife, old-kitchen-friend, start removing the skin. You will notice how thin and flexible it is. By the way, I didn’t skin the squid arms. And so far, the taste was fine.  So if you are tired of skinning, skip its arms. When you are done with skinning, you are ready to cut the meat.

There are quite a few guides on how to cut the squid. And if the squid meat has sufficient thickness, then you can accomplish all the prescribed designs. Otherwise, even being very careful, it is very easy to cut the meat through. Therefore, choice is all yours. I cut it in 3 types:

1. rings (obviously you cut the squid body or tube). Some people use knife, some people use kitchen scissors. The second is easier and less dangerous. But in case you are eager to make very thin rings, then you better operate with very sharp knife.
2. rectangles (which are previously surface-cut like a small square grid). You can cut the the straight lines little bit keeping your knife on certain angle. And then do the same lines approximately perpendicular to the 1st set of lines. If the meat is thick enough, you can do the same grid pattern on the other side of meat. After you are done with the grid cut the meat into rectangles of desired size.
3. sun-shape ring. At the end of the body tube where the hole is small enough you may cut very wide rings. Take that kind of ring and start cutting the outer edges close to the hole but not as close as to ruin it. Cut the same fashion around the whole circle and then turn it out. You will get very cute sun shape.

Probably there are other types of cutting squid meat, and you can try out on your own.

And now the most fun thing! It takes so little for squid to be cooked! Just around 15-30 seconds in BOILED water with SALT, and your squid is ready. Now you can put it into some sauce, or salad. Or instead of boiling, you can also fry it the way you want!

Bon apppetit!

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