Tag Archives: squid

Main Course: Fish

End-of-Summer Squid Salad with Potatoes & Green Beans

My mom usually served her seafood salads with a side of boiled potatoes: the brininess of the lemony dressing from the seafood gave the potatoes a delicious flavor. So when I make a seafood salad, I usually boil a few potatoes to drag through the lemony dressing. The salad I made last week is much simpler than my mother’s (no mussels, shrimp, or octopus), and comes together in minutes.

If you can find small squid, it will be much more tender than larger squid. Most seafood salads call for cooking the seafood in white wine; my trick is to boil the squid in the water from the potatoes after I pull out the potatoes. It not only saves a pot, it gives the squid a sweeter flavor and helps it emerge extra-moist. Remember that with squid, you can either flash-cook it until it just curls and turns opaque, or you can slow-cook it for about 45 minutes until it becomes super-soft. Anything in between yields tough, rubbery squid. This recipe is of the flash-cook variety.


Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as an appetizer

  • 1/2 pound young boiling potatoes, scrubbed (a variety of colors is fine)
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 pound green beans, ends trimmed
  • 1 pound baby squid, tubes cut into thin rings
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/8 teaspoon chili flakes
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 tablespoon minced Italian parsley

Place the potatoes in a 3-quart pot. Cover with cool water and add 1 tablespoon of the salt. Bring to a boil and cook until tender when pierced with a knife, about 20 minutes for small potatoes and 40 minutes for larger potatoes. Remove from the pot and reserve the boiling water. Slice the potatoes in half and place on a platter, cut side facing up.

Return the potato boiling water to a boil. Add the beans to the boiling water and cook 5 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Remove from the pot and reserve the boiling water. Shock the beans under cool water and drain; blot dry and place next to the potatoes on the platter.

Return the potato boiling water to a boil. Add the squid and cook 1 minute, or until the tentacles curl and the squid rings turn opaque. Drain and place on the platter next to the potatoes and green beans.

In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, pepper, chili flakes, garlic, and parsley. Stir in the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Pour over the potatoes, green beans, and squid. Toss gently and serve warm, cutting the potatoes and beans on your plate into bite-size pieces as you eat.

squid-salad-far-1200

squid-salad-1200

squid-salad-chopped-1200

Pasta: Seafood

Spaghetti with Squid, Sweet Peas, and Fresh Chives

Along the Adriatic Sea, Friulian cooks combine fresh offerings from the water with unusual fresh herbs and spices; parsley is commonplace across Italy as a partner to fish and seafood, but in Friuli, fresh chives are favorites as well. The result is particularly beguiling when peas are added. When it comes to squid, you can either flash-cook it (1 minute or less) or stew it low and slow. Either will result in tender squid, but anything in between is likely

to yield rubbery squid. Here the chosen method is low and slow.  Don’t be

alarmed at the large quantity of squid called for in the recipe below: once they hit the pan, the squid lose so much moisture that they shrink considerably.

Ingredient notes: In Grado and other towns along the coast, cooks use cuttlefish for this recipe as often as squid; feel free to use cuttlefish if you find some at your local fish market. But remember: the smaller the squid (or cuttlefish), the sweeter the taste and the more tender the flesh.

Squid and sweet pea sauce with chives

Serves 4

For the sauce:

  • 1 pound ripe plum tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tablespoons minced Italian parsley
  • 2 pounds cleaned squid, tentacles chopped if large, tubes cut into thin rings (weight after cleaning; about 4 pounds prior to cleaning)
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 and ½ teaspoons salt
  • ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • Cool water as needed
  • ½ pound (2 cups) frozen petite peas, thawed

For the pasta and to serve:

  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 1 pound spaghetti
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons snipped chives

Make the sauce: Make a cross-hatch on the bottom of each tomato and cut out the stem end on each tomato. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil and drop in the tomatoes; cook until the skins begin to loosen, about 30 seconds for ripe tomatoes and 2 minutes for firmer tomatoes. Drain and cool. Slip off the skins. Cut in half along the width (the Equator) and scoop out the seeds. Dice finely and set aside.  (I actually like the seeds so I do not remove them, but most classic Italian recipes call for seeding the tomatoes; this is your call. Seeds contain a lot of flavor as well as vitamins.)

Warm the olive oil with the garlic and parsley over a medium flame in a deep, wide saucepan large enough to accommodate the pasta later. When the garlic is just fragrant, but before it takes on any color, add the squid. Cook 10 minutes, stirring often. Add the wine and cook until the wine nearly evaporates, about 2 minutes, then stir in the tomatoes, season with the salt and pepper, and cover. Cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, adding water as needed to maintain about ½ cup of liquid in the pan at all times. Stir in the peas and, if needed, some water to keep the sauce nice and moist. Cover again and cook 5 minutes. Adjust the seasoning and keep warm.

Make the pasta: Bring 5 quarts of water to a boil. Add the salt and the pasta. Cook until al dente, then drain, reserving 2 cups of the pasta cooking water.

Transfer the drained pasta to the saucepan and sauté 1 minute over high heat to meld the flavors. Add some of the reserved pasta cooking water as needed to thin out the sauce; it should coat the pasta nicely. Stir in the olive oil. Adjust the seasoning and serve hot, sprinkled with the chives.

Micol Negrin