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Dried squid: how to cook? Video
Dried squid is a great appetizer that suits both a lavish celebration and a modest friendly party. Dried squid packets are quite common in stores, but you can also make such a snack at home.
You bought frozen squid …
There are canned squid on sale, frozen and fresh. The first option for drying, of course, is not suitable. The processing technology for fresh and frozen carcasses has some differences. But in any case, you need: – squid carcass; – water; – salt; – oven or microwave. Put the frozen carcass in a container with cool water and defrost, then rinse under the tap. Just wash fresh squid thoroughly.
Rinse food with cold water
Butcher the carcass. Separate the tentacles from the sirloin. Rinse each part well again. Remove the transparencies. It will be easier to do this by scalding the carcass and tentacles with boiling water, and then washing them with cold water. Remove the chord and guts. Wash all parts again with cold running water.
Soak the squid in salted water before drying. There are two possibilities. You can immerse the fillets and tentacles in a mild saline solution and leave for twelve hours. If you want to cook a snack quickly, make brine – a strong saline solution of the same composition that is used in the North for salting caviar. To prepare a weak solution, you need: – 2 tbsp. l. coarse salt; – 1 liter of water. Salt dissolves faster in hot water. Pour the solution into an enamel bowl, place the squid there and leave overnight. For brine, you need much more salt, about 1 glass per liter. Squid pieces are immersed in the solution for 3-4 minutes. If you cut the carcass and tentacles into very small rings, it will be enough to immerse the pieces for 2 minutes.
The size of the pieces depends on how you are going to dry the squid. If you will be doing this in the oven, cut the carcass into small pieces. To dry on a hook, you need to leave the carcass intact
Salted squid turns into dried
Inhabitants of Asian seaside villages have long dried squid simply in the air. This can be done, for example, in the country, if your summer house has a well-ventilated veranda. If there is a loggia, nothing prevents you from drying seafood in a city apartment if there is a closed loggia. Attach stainless steel hooks to the wall so that the hanging carcass does not touch the wall. Hang the sirloin and long tentacles. In this case, the squid is dried for several days. After it dries, tear large pieces along the grain into strips. If the tentacles are thin and short, leave them as they are.
The drying room must be well ventilated. Also, make sure that the squid is not exposed to direct sunlight.
Dried squid cooks much faster in the oven than on the hook. Remove the squid pieces from the solution. Wait for the liquid to drain. During this time, prepare the baking sheet and turn on the oven. Arrange the slices in one layer on a baking sheet. At enterprises, squid is dried at a temperature not exceeding 50 ° C. At home, it is not always possible to maintain a constant temperature in the oven, but make sure that the thermometer does not move too far from the desired mark. In this case, the oven can be periodically turned off and even opened. Dry the squid for about three hours.
Why not in the microwave?
The quickest way to cook dried squid is in the microwave. But only in one case: if there is a convection mode. Dry the small squid on low power for half an hour. If the carcass is large, drying will take a little longer, but in any case, your squid will be ready in an hour.