Lemon Juice
Stuffed Calamari
- Serves 2
Author Notes
Although these little ones in the picture look very sweet and they were also very tasty, it was quite a hassle to prepare. I had to clean all of them, so pull out the intestines by pulling out the tentacles. Remove the spine-like part from the back and cut the legs from the head. Cut just before the eyes and take out the mouth that is placed in the middle of the tentacles. Rinse the octopussies inside and out and leave in the fridge until you prepare the stuffing, if you did not lose your appetite by now.
Unfortunately the calamari I bought here was not as fresh as we found them in Greece but even with frozen calamari this is a nice recipe. I will follow the tips that the chef of the restaurant Tomatini in Santorini gave me for preparing this dish.
I’ll give you the recipe for my ½ kilo of little calamari, the measurements will be different probably when you use big ones so keep that in mind.
—Janneke Verheij
Ingredients
-
1/2
1 pound small calamari (this weight is before cleaning)
-
0.2 pounds
arborio rice
-
4
sun dried tomartoes
-
1/2 bunch
parsley
-
big squeeze of lemon juice
-
good drizzle of olive oil
-
1/2 big or 1 small red onion
-
2
garlic cloves
Directions
- I already explained how to clean the calamari above. This is not the nicest job but also part of it. Cut the onion small. Cut the tentacles in rice size pieces.
- Rinse the rice. Bake the onion in a deep pot and add the rice. Add a minimum amount of boiling water, salt and cook it until not quite done. It will continue the process after you close the fire because it is a mass, and later in the oven.
- In the meantime, use a little food processor to make a paste of sun dried tomatoes, parsley, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, pepper and salt. You can do it by hand but this requires a lot of small small cutting.
- Mix this paste and the tentacles with the rice and stuff the calamari with it. Brush an oven dish with olive oil and lay the stuffed squid inside.
- Bake them until done. I baked mine for about 15-20 minutes but try to adjust the time to the size of your calamari. Also keep in mind that if your rice is still warm, the baking time is shorter than when you made the rice up front and let it cool down.
- The cook also told me to make little cuts on the back of the calamari, I forgot to do this as you can see in the picture but next time I’ll try it to see if it makes a difference. Another nice recipes thanks to our wonderful holiday in Greece.
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