Calamari
Great little starter or nibble. Served with a nice garlic aioli is our favourite but lots of different sauces work. Again if you have a deep fat fryer great, if you don’t, get one.
Serves 4
Wine Pairing - Eric Texier Adele Cotes du Rhone
Ingredients
- 500g calamari tubes and or tentacles
- 250ml buttermilk
- 150g flour
- 70g cornflour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder(Optional)
- 4 tsps salt
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- Oil for frying
- 1 lemon cut into wedges to serve
Method
- Combine the calamari and the buttermilk in a bowl and mix it all up so the calamari is nicely covered in the buttermilk.
- Cover with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least an hour.
- If using a deep fat fryer, heat your oil to 190 celsius.
- If using a frying pan, heat 3-4 inches of oil in the pan.
- You want it at the same heat in the pan anyway.
- If you don’t have a thermometer, do the bread trick to check the temperature.
- Place the flour, cornflour, baking powder, salt, paprika, pepper and garlic powder in a bowl.
- Stir it really well to combine it all.
- Remove squid from the fridge.
- Remove the calamari piece by piece, letting any excess buttermilk drip off first, and dredge in the flour mix.
- Set each piece aside on a plate until all pieces are floured.
- If calamari still seem wet then just dredge again in the flour.
- Place 8 pieces in your oil at a time and cook for 2 minutes until golden brown.
- Drain these pieces on kitchen roll and repeat with all the squid until theyve all been cooked.
- We know you’re not supposed to but we like to quickly flash all pieces again together in the oil for just another minute.
- Drain again on fresh kitchen roll.
- Serve on a plate and sprinkle with some salt.
- Serve alongside the dip of your choice with lemon wedges to squeeze over.