Stuffed Squid

Squid is a product widely used in the kitchens of many regions around the world. All kinds of dishes are made with the body and tentacles, and even the ink can be used to make a rich stew of squid in its ink. In some recipes, the squid is cut into rings, and in others, like today's recipe, it is used whole. The cooking methods this product can be subjected to are varied; grilled, fried, stewed, baked. You can use everything from the squid, except for the beak and the shell or feather inside.

In the countries of the Mediterranean Sea area, it is traditional to prepare it cut into rings, battered and fried, leading to a dish that in Spain is called Roman-style squid. The secret of this preparation lies in a good batter and frying the rings for a short time so that they do not get hard. We can top off the dish if we accompany it with various sauces (mayonnaise, green sauce, etc) or simply a piece of lemon. If you haven't tried them, I advise you to do so as soon as possible.

For the preparation of today's recipe, you should buy the squid whole and clean them at home, if you've never done it, I recommend you take a look at the video you can find in our post on how to clean a squid. When buying them, I advise you to opt for pieces of approximately fifteen centimeters. If they are very small, it will be hard work filling them.

How to make the recipe Stuffed Squid

1. We start the recipe by boiling the eggs, for this, we put them in a saucepan and cover them with water. We bring it to a boil and cook, maintaining a moderate boil, between 8 and 10 minutes. We count the time from when the water boils. After the cooking time, we remove the eggs from the water and let them cool while we continue with the rest of the recipe.
2. We peel the onion and, after finely chopping it, put it in a bowl. We cut the tentacles and fins of the squid into small pieces. We add them to the bowl with the onion.
3. We finely chop the parsley, and add it to the bowl along with the ground pepper and salt. With the help of a spoon, we mix all the ingredients well.
4. Once the eggs have cooled down, we peel them and cut them into medium pieces to add them to the bowl. We mix again.
5. Next, we add the breadcrumbs. We crack an egg and pour its content into the bowl. Both ingredients will serve to give consistency to the stuffing. We mix once more.
6. Next, we fill the body of the squid with the mixture of ingredients that we have just prepared. It's important not to stuff it too much, as the squid will shrink during cooking and, if we have overfilled it, it could break. Once we have filled them, we use a toothpick to seal them and prevent the stuffing from coming out during cooking.
7. We heat olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, we add the squid and cook them for a few minutes to brown them on all sides. At that moment, we remove from the pan and set it aside.
8. We peel the onion and finely chop it. We add it to the same pan where we cooked the squids. If necessary, we pour a little more olive oil. We cook, over medium heat, until the onion softens.
9. In the meantime, we grate the tomatoes. We can also blanch them or crush them whole and then pass them through a sieve to remove the skin and seeds.
10. When the onion is soft, we add the tomato to the pan. We continue cooking to evaporate part of the water.
11. We put the almond slices in a saucepan and heat gently to brown them. Stir regularly to prevent them from burning. No need to add oil or any other kind of fat. Once they are browned, we crush them in a mortar until they are fine.
12. When part of the tomato water has evaporated, we add the crushed almonds, a little salt, the white wine, and the water to the stew. We stir and cook for 2 or 3 minutes.
13. Next, we introduce the squids into the stew. We cook, maintaining a moderate boil, for approximately 25 minutes. The time will depend on the size of the squid used.
14. When serving, we remove the toothpick. We serve our squids accompanied by a little sauce.

Notes and Tips

You can use squids of various sizes to make this dish, but the smaller they are, the tenderer they will be.

If the necessary cooking time has passed for the squids to soften but the sauce is not to our liking, we can remove the squids and continue cooking the sauce to thicken it. We can also add a little cornstarch, previously dissolved in room temperature water.