Squid stuffed with Ricotta, Breadcrumbs, Chilli and Marjoram

Squid is one of the more unique ingredients that you can cook with. I often find that it’s one of those very divisive forms of food – either you love it or you hate it. I know many people that dislike it because it seems ‘weird’, maybe because of the way it looks or because it can sometimes have a rubbery consistency of not cooked well. Indeed, squid needs to be cooked properly and served with other ingredients and spices for it to be appetising. The worst thing is for squid to be overcooked – it then forms an extremely rubbery consistency that makes it difficult to bite through. If eaten on its own, let’s admit it, it’s pretty bland. However, not much is needed to lift it to something delicious. I’m sure many of us will recall wonderful days during our summer childhood having crumbed calamari with lemon squeezed over the top of it, and dipping it into tartar sauce. That’s certainly how I fell in love with squid. I absolutely loved calamari. The only thing that I found annoying was sometimes the chefs would forget to cut the squid properly, and as such there would be a tight ‘elastic band’ of squid that I nearly choked on innumerable times!

Another form of squid that I love is found in Chinese cooking – salt & pepper squid. Whenever I go to yum cha with friends, there has to be salt & pepper squid. Once again, the flavours aren’t extravagant, but the seasoning and the chilli really lift the squid to a different dimension. The last time I went for yum cha at the Marigold in Sydney, I found my arm constantly reaching out to the salt & pepper squid plate so much that I’m quite confident I had at least three-quarters of it! So I knew that my mouth and my heart were telling me that I needed to cook a squid dish, and I had previously been drawn to this recipe, from Tobie Puttock, because of the idea of cooking the squid whole and stuffing them with wonderfully fresh and delicious ingredients, not to mention the added spiciness that I love from chillies in a dish. I’ve recently cooked quite a few of Tobie Puttock’s recipes, including my first gnocchi dish ever, and I’ve become a very big fan. His recipes display great modern Italian food and provide twists that traditional recipes often lack.

I recall seeing on a television cooking show the process of chopping up a whole squid, with the ink sac attached, and nine times out of ten the ink sac would puncture and black ink would gush all over the squid. So, I decided that I would actually just buy the squid tubes themselves, and I was pleasantly surprised at the price. The first process of the recipe is to make the breadcrumbs. The old me would have used pre-packaged breadcrumbs, but now I cringe at that thought. When I combined all of the ingredients and the ciabatta and put them in the oven, the smell was amazing! It was nearly impossible to resist eating some of the bread when it came out of the oven. As I’ve mentioned before, I often marvel at how people, such as myself, can overcome their dislike for certain foods. I majorly hated onion when I was young, to the point where I would pick out the smallest bits of onion from the spaghetti Bolognese for around ten minutes before I would start eating. If I was really sick and I knew throwing up would do me good, all I had to do was think about French Onion soup (that’s a nice passage for a cooking blog isn’t it!). Now I love the stuff. In the case of this recipe, it’s anchovies. I now love them, and they provide beautiful saltiness and oiliness to the dressing. One thing I’m still a bit tentative about is ricotta. I recall cooking a pasta dish with ricotta around eight years ago that I disliked quite intensely, but now I just find it rather bland and unappealing. I’m sure it added flavour to this recipe, but I don’t think I’ll ever be a great fan. I think one of the reasons why this recipe is so good is that, while it looks complicated, it’s actually quite simple. There are only three elements – the stuffing, the dressing and the squid. When combined, it’s a taste explosion. The squid was so tender – absolutely no hint of any rubber! I think this dish would convert many people that are a bit equivocal regarding squid.

Recipe (serves 4):

500g squid tubes, with tentacles

4 tbs ricotta

1 tbs marjoram, roughly chopped

Finely grated zest & juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Extra virgin olive oil for flavour & dressing

Olive oil for greasing

3 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped

2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped

1 tbs flat-leaf parsley, chopped

A small handful of feathery fennel tops or celery leaves

Breadcrumbs

1 small loaf ciabatta bread

1 tbs rosemary leaves, finely chopped

1 tsp dried chilli (optional)

3 tbs olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.

To make the breadcrumbs, break the ciabatta into 5cm pieces. Place on a baking tray and scatter with rosemary and dried chilli. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Bake until the bread turns a rich golden colour. Shake the tray from time to time so the bread cooks evenly.

After the bread has cooled, place it in a food processor and pulse it to the consistency of coarse sand. You can also rub it between the palms of your hands. Set aside.

Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil. Cook the squid tentacles for about 10 mins; drain, then rinse in cold water. Chop roughly then set aside.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees. In a mixing bowl bring together the ricotta, breadcrumbs, marjoram, lemon zest, garlic, parmesan and chopped tentacles. Season for taste and add a good splash of extra virgin olive oil. Use a spoon or piping bag to fill the squid with the ricotta stuffing, then secure the ends with toothpicks.

Place a sheet of greaseproof paper on a baking tray, and smear it with some olive oil (it’s easiest if you use your hands to do this). Place the stuffed squid tubes on the baking tray and cook in the oven for 8-12 mins or until the squid turns white.

In the meantime, get the dressing going. Put the anchovies, chillies and parsley in a bowl large enough to accommodate the squid. Pour in just enough extra virgin olive oil to make a rough paste. Season with salt & pepper and add a squeeze of lemon juice. Transfer the squid from the baking tray to the bowl; use tongs to rotate the squid to coat it with the mixture.

Arrange the tubes on plates and drizzle with the remaining anchovy dressing. Finish with cracked pepper, another drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a scattering of fennel tops or celery leaves.

Category: Italian

Source: “Daily Italian” by Tobie Puttock

Rating: Five stars

Mushroom Risotto

I was going through my plans for a dinner party that I was throwing in a week’s time and thinking about what I would cook. Firstly, I didn’t want to cook an Asian dish as that would probably be expected, given that it’s my favourite cuisine. The other major issue was that my friend’s girlfriend is a vegetarian, so I wanted to cook something that was tasty and satisfying. Not too long before I had cooked a Cauliflower Curry and thought that I could serve that, but I just didn’t think it had the depth of flavour or may not be a sufficient main course. So I decided that a risotto would be appropriate, and this mushroom risotto seemed perfect. The great thing about mushrooms is that they are quite fleshy and meaty and they seem to retain flavour so well as long as you don’t wash them with water and drain away all their flavour.

The first time I ever cooked risotto, years ago obviously, I had no idea that you had to use Arborio rice, so I just picked up a random packet of rice which happened to be basmati rice. As you can imagine, it didn’t exactly turn out the way it should have! Now, I really enjoy cooking risottos, as it’s a balancing act to make sure the rice turns out well. Whereas when you cook paella you pour in all the stock at once, with risotto it’s a very caring form of cooking – constantly paying attention to the condition of the rice and ‘feeding’ it more stock when it gets ‘thirsty’. I got this recipe from Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals, and the thing that I really love about it is that it produces two different textures of mushrooms. Half the mushrooms go in the risotto and so become soft and oozy and the other half are placed in a pan and dressed with oil and herbs and then grilled to produce a crispy texture that produces a nice juxtaposition to the risotto. Because I cooked this recipe twice in one week, I bought so many mushrooms from my local grocer. The second time I was there, she gave me almost a disturbed look and asked me “What do you do with all of these?”, as if I go home and do something inappropriate with mushrooms!

So the evening went well, and this is definitely one of my favourite risotto recipes. It has an earthier flavour than some risottos because of the flavour acquired from the mushrooms, but that adds richness to the risotto. The only thing that produced a bit of consternation was when I was about to add the ‘large knob’ of butter. I’m a generous person, and that’s certainly the case with butter! We had a two minute conversation about what constitutes a ‘large knob’ (double entendre?), and unfortunately I had to tone down and think about everyone’s arteries, but butter and stock are the vital elements in a risotto!Jamie's 30 Minute Meals is a good cookbook, but as with my friend, I actually enjoy the long process of cooking and the preparation of all the ingredients. I know it would be different if I was married and had children, but hey, that’s never going to happen.

Recipe (serves 4):

1 large white onion, finely chopped

1 stick celery, finely chopped

2 sprigs fresh rosemary

15g dried porcini mushrooms, finely chopped

300g risotto rice

½ cup white wine

1 chicken/vegetable stock cube

500g mixed mushrooms (chestnut, oyster, shiitake etc)

4 garlic cloves, crushed

Small bunch of fresh thyme

Large knob of butter

40g Parmesan cheese

1 mug boiling water

½ lemon

½ small bunch flat-leaf parsley

Heat a large high-sided saucepan on a medium heat. Add the olive oil, onion, celery, porcini mushrooms and half the garlic, stirring regularly. Turn the grill to high.

Add the rice and rosemary leaves to the pan. Stir well for 1 min, then pour in the white wine and crumble in the stock cube, stirring until the wine is absorbed. Season and add a mug of boiling water. Stir well.

Add half the mushrooms to the pan and reduce the heat to a simmer. Continue to add boiling water or stock every minute or so for about 15-18 minutes.

Add the remaining mushrooms to a frying pan over a high heat, together with extra virgin olive oil and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Crush over 4 cloves of garlic. Add half the leaves from the thyme to the pan, stir them in, then take off the heat. Pick the remaining leaves and add to the risotto.

Put the frying pan in the grill on the top shelf. Continue to stir the risotto. Remove the frying pan when mushrooms are gold and crispy.

When the risotto is porridge-like, stir in the butter and finely grate over most of the parmesan. Add a good squeeze of lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Add water or stock if needed.

Serve and garnish with the crispy mushrooms, parsley and some grated parmesan.

Cuisine: Italian/Vegetarian

Source: “Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals” by Jamie Oliver

Rating: Five stars