Squids in. (Fish)

Member Name: The Operator

Product:	Fish
Date:	26/03/02 (297 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well cheap

Disadvantages: The title. I ought to be shot for it

Oh dear. I hate it when I get inspired. It doesn't happen very often and when it does, inspiration descends like a flash squally flood type thing and then abates just as fast. The resultant calm is no good to anyone so it's strike while the iron is hot so to speak. Not that I would advocate striking a hot iron. That would be inadvisable at best. Some even keep their iron well hidden away in order to avoid such calamity.

No! Inspiration struck me in Morrisons, as is often the case. Morrisons is cheap cheap cheap so when inspiration does indeed strike there it comes at a discount. As opposed to Sainsbury's which is hideously expensive. Tonight it was immediate - I walked in and the pungent marine odours just inside the door drew me towards the delights of the wet fish stall - sadly depleted of the majority of all things piscene by 6pm. Or 18.00 for you continental types. What was left? Scallops at £19 per kilo. Not in the Operator's budget for this week, sadly. Cod - boring! Sea bream maybe but that looked a bit dreary. No again! Boyhood memories of fishing at Sandgate (near Hythe in Kent, northern people) and placing some of these on a hot tilly lamp and committing the resultant rather nice pong to memory for future culinary reference made me ask the fishmonger, "Kind sir, monger me some of your finest squid tubes - I'll take half a dozen." "We're all metric sir. EU rules. Can't do dozens or demi-multiples thereof." "I'm stuck then. I can't think outside of archaic imperial measurements and the continental system doesn't readily lend itself to naming groups of items in a populist stylee. It prefers modern slick numeracy over tradition. And I'm just not modern enough. Stop yawning and give me six then. Please." "Fifty-two pence, sir." "Bargain."

There you have it. The main ingredient of tonight's epicurian adventure, six squids. What to have with th
em? Well, I have some spaghetti. Black spaghetti. Coloured with squid ink and bought on a whim at Christmas. But I didn't fancy that so it was a browse around the fruit and veg. I like citrus flavours so I got a lemon. I had ginger at home still, left over from the chicken thing I did a while ago (listen, did anyone who promised actually make that? Or were you all just humouring me?) so I thought I'd try a bit of that. Must have a bit of veg though and a bit of colour. Mange tout - why not. That's French for eat it all or something. Actually it's posh for flat, sweet, empty pea-pods which don't take a lot of cooking and which can be thrown in at the last moment because they're meant to stay crunchy. Clever the French, just two words to say all that. I take it all back. So tonight's trinity - squid, ginger and mange tout. Not a lot really. Not too many strong flavours so maybe I'll chuck in a bit of cream or something like onion along the way.
And I got basmati rice, too. Instead of the spaghetti because I think rice goes better with something slightly spicy.

So the ingredients are as follows (feeds one early middle-aged bloke, multiply by however many you are intending to feed otherwise)

A sick squid, sorry six squids (apologies J.Tarbuck).
A handful of mange tout
A small chunk of root ginger
Half a medium sized red onion
Half a lemon with all the fibre removed leaving only the juice (look, I have to make this interesting)
A couple of desert spoons' worth or thereabouts of double cream
A handful of basmati rice
A tiny little squirt of sweet chilli sauce
Sel et poivre to taste

This is what you do.

Empty out the squid. Anglers and the non-squeamish are ok here. The others? OK they have eyes but so do fish and they're slimy. They're not slimy, they're smooth. There's nothing resembling eel snot to contend with. Grab the tube and pull out the head
bit with all the tentacles attached. Don't worry, being dead it's no longer sentient and it does come away rather easily. Discard. Look in the remaining tube and you'll see a transparent thing sticking out. This is called the feather and is unsurprisingly, inedible. Pull this out too. You can now remove the speckly skin just by rubbing your fingers over the soft and pliant flesh. You don't have to remove it, I just prefer to (yes, I have cooked squid before). Rinse well to clear out the remaining innards and bits of sea bed. Get a reasonably sharp knife and without slicing your fingers, cut the tubes into rings. Place in a pot, pour over the lemon juice and mix in the ginger which you have just grated and add a bit of ground black pepper.

Make a cup of tea. Make love to your partner or even do as I did in the absence of a partner, play some mean bluesy guitar just to while away a few moments while the flayed and quartered crustaceans absorb the subtle flavours of the marinade.

Put the rice on. Blimey, that bit's simple.

Unwrap the wok you've just bought. Give it a wash and slap it on the hob. Heat it up until the dollop of oil you've put in starts to smoke. Throw in the onion, sliced thinly I hasten to add - not as one big lump - the recipe won't work otherwise and stir it around for a couple of minutes.
Stop the rice from boiling over by turning the heat down. Ok, clean it up later then.
Now chuck in the squid, ginger and lemon juice. The squid will turn white and curl a little bit. Now is the tricky bit. You want to maintain the heat but you don't want to let the squid go all rubbery. They shouldn't because they're not usually bigguns from fishmongers but now would be a good time to add first the mange tout to fry off for a minute or so and then the cream and the squirt of chilli sauce. Sprinkle in some more salt and pepper if you want, it's your dish and I don't really min
d what you do at this point to tune it to your taste. Let this bubble away until the rice is ready (not too long - about 4-5 minutes should be ok).

Tip out the perfectly cooked rice and pour over the contents of your wok. The cream should seep down, the gentle tang of the chilli complementing the delicate and distinctive flavour of the basmati rice and the sweet and crunchy mange tout should provide a healthy counterpoint to the slightly chewy but nevertheless tasty and satisfyingly ginger and lemon touched marine flavours of the squid.

Congratulate yourself heartily, pour out a beer or if you are blessed with an abundance of stamina, pleasure your partner again. Anyone can cook, you see. It's all the other stuff in life that's difficult.

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