Calamari is darn fine grub

Calamari is absolutely one of my favorite things. During my years living in Calgary, on countless weekend visits to my sister in Edmonton AB, we'd hit one particular Italian restaurant that served perfectly coated, crispy fried calamari with a spicy marinara sauce. Enjoyed along with a half litre (or so) of house vin d'ordinare, we'd solve all the world's problems over lunch. Oh those were the days. I still get homesick thinking about them and of the laughs we'd have together. We still have laughs, it's just over long distance now and sans the calamari. Darn.

The big guy and I hit 17th Street Market here in Tucson over the weekend and brought home some beautiful calamari. The Market calls themselves a farmer's market and honestly, you can kinda' tell that from the produce - it's unbelievable, but their fish counter takes the cake. They have everything from incredible shrimp, prawns and dungeness crab to huge whole fresh snapper, sushi grade Ahi tuna, beautiful sea bass, grouper - I swear if you name it, it's there. It's all beautifully presented and well priced.

Other than the drive, we've really no excuses for not visiting 17 Street Market more often, in fact I was singing "happy birthday to me" because the big guy spotted a huge paella pan and I've been wanting one of those for a very long time. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on the point of view) my birthday's a long way off - I shoulda' been singing happy anniversary instead. Our shopping excursion was quite hilarious. I should have put a leash on the big guy because I spent most of my time trying to find him. He was "flittfarting" all over the place filling his basket with stuff that was coming outa' my budget! I'm not complaining though, honest. Ya' gotta' love a guy that goes grocery shopping with ya'. We love our  Saturday morning adventures.

The calamari we bought was a perfect size and a great price. I mean a pound of the stuff cost us $2.99 - can you believe it? Thankfully the big guy enjoys prepping stuff like this, because if I had to do it, we wouldn't be cooking it at home. It ain't pretty and has a particular aroma.

He washed the squid well, then cut the head off right behind the eyes. Then he pulled the inards  out of the tube (I cut that out of the pics cause it ain't pretty), and removed the quill, cut the beak off the tentacles, skinned the tube and washed it all again. The taste of the finished product does not relate in any way to the squid before they're cleaned. There's no way around it - the darn things stink to high heaven.

  

  

We've been anxious to try a recipe that I spotted in this year's May issue of Gourmet magazine. The squid is stuffed with a homemade fennel sausage then grilled. It looked amazing and we mostly followed the recipe as written except that we ramped up the spices in the sausage by adding some red pepper flakes along with a few cranks of spicy sea salt. Check out the recipe at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Sausage-Stuffed-Calamari-352871 The end result was quite delish, though I found the sausage stuffing a little dry. Next time we make it, we'll cut back on the breadcrumbs in the recipe by about half and see what happens. Also, don't be afraid to coat the cooked calamari well with more olive oil when you take them off the grill. Along with a crisp salad and even crisper Pinot Gris, dinner was a tastie celebration of the sea and best of all, low in the calories. (Did I just make a rhyme?)

By the way - good news. Max the wonder dawg is feeling better. He turned 6 in April and has had seizures since he was 18 months old. The medication he's on does nasties to his stomach sometimes but its the price we pay trying to keep the darn things under control. Obviously it's working somewhat because May 1 was his last marathan (13 in 20 hours). Since then he's only had single seizures and it'll be 7 weeks on Friday since his last. There...now I've surely jinxed it.  If he'd just lay off the "cat candy" and stop hunting lizards with Georgie, life would be much easier but likely not as much fun. He's definitely got her beat on the lizards, but she's winning at rat catching. It's some contest and there's NEVER a dull moment.

Comments

[Mags]

Wow June... I am impressed! That is just a lovely final photo. Thankfully, I am not allergic to squid. But solely because of all the prep work you outlined above, it's something I only eat in restaurants.

Big guy did an excellent prep job.

[JBug]

Thanks Mags - he did, didn't he. There'll be no living with him now! By the way, lest I take credit where it isn't due, he did the grillin' while I did the wine chillin'.