Day 75: a prepping challenge
I think I’ve been playing it a bit safe again for the past few weeks: naturally gravitating towards choices I know I will like and am comfortable making. Whilst I love the choosing process - sitting/lying down with a different book on the sofa, or in bed, and making a list of possible candidates for the following week - it’s also wonderful to hear about your favourites. It broadens my horizons and draws my attention to recipes that I may miss or not think of trying.
And that brings us to today’s pick: Nigella’s Smoky Squid with Beans: recommended by a follower on Twitter (thank you!). Not out of my comfort zone per se, and certainly something I would love, but not something I would have prioritised because I’m a little squeamish when it comes to prepping whole animals! Still, challenges are imperative and they satisfy my lust for learning.
Nigella’s Smokey Squid with Beans
I have NEVER cooked with fresh squid before: frozen and already prepped into rings, yes, but not fresh and whole. It’s not a challenge that ever took my fancy, to be honest, especially considering there are a few pubs and restaurants near to me that do very nice calamari. I am therefore quite happy for them, or their suppliers, to take on this prep.
When it came to the preparation of this particular squid I was a little taken back by the smell. I wouldn’t say it was particularly bad in the sense of being rotten, but the stench of strong fish was quite overwhelming. Between the intermittent retching, I managed to clean and prepare the squid and am quite proud of myself. It’s not an activity I’m keen to repeat, but it was a knowledge bearing experience nevertheless. A task that I’ll perhaps be asking the fishmonger to do for me next time, though.
I proceeded here, naive to the fact this squid was on the turn: I picked it up from the fishmonger on Saturday morning and didn’t cook/prepare it until Monday evening, but I thought it would be fine. Whilst I don’t think it had quite turned - as we both ate it with no untoward after-effects - it was definitely on the brink. The flavour was too strong, for me, and I’ve eaten enough squid to know this was perhaps no longer the freshest - it was a little….ripe, let’s say. In hindsight, I should have perhaps cleaned and frozen it on the day of purchase if I knew I wasn’t going to be cooking with it for a few days. You live: you learn. Apparently, squid should be pearly-white and barely smell when at its most fresh. I am no fishmonger or expert in handling raw fish, so I only repeat what I read across the internet in my research following the preparation of this squid.
If I’m honest, butter beans (certainly the tinned ones anyway) are a bit too powdery for me - if you’ve followed this cookalong since the beginning you’ll know my views on pulses - so I would definitely like to try it again with the jarred Judion beans (as recommended by Nigella in the recipe intro in Cook Eat Repeat) in their place. After all, I never liked chickpeas until I tried the jarred ones!
Flavour musings
Despite the unforeseen squid disaster, Nigella’s Smoky Squid with Beans was a wonderful bowl of goodness! I look forward to making it again, and trying the mussel and/or clam and chickpea version in particular.
