Sunday, January 20, 2013

What's cooking today?

No, don't worry, this is not turning into a cookery blog. There are so many beautiful blogs about cooking around with the most inspiring recipes and even more beautiful photos....I could never even come close.

But as I was cooking our dinner earlier on I thought I'll share it with you because today's dish is so typical mediterranean: Calamari (or squid).
Fried calamari or fried squid is a well known and very popular dish but you can make calamari in many different ways and one of them is my dish today: calamari in a red sauce with pasta.

In our taverna in the summertime very often guests order octopus when what they really want is fried calamari. There is a big difference between them two.

Have a look at the octopus
Photo borrowed from wikipedia
The ocopus can also be prepared in many different ways. In the taverna we usually serve it grilled or as a cold dish: boiled and laid in a vinaigrette. The locals have it is a appetizer (meze) with their ouzo or tsipouro.
Sometimes we cook the octopus in a winesauce or as a stifado, which means that is cooked with a lot of small onions. Very tasty indeed.

But back to today's dish.

Here is one of the calamari just before I cut it up:


It doesn't look like this when it comes out of the sea, it has a reddishbrown skin which I took of before I froze them. It is best to freeze fresh calamari first if you want it nice and soft after cooking and not chewy like rubber.

Sauteed with onion and garlic

Bayleaves, cinnamonstick, tomatojuice and oliveoil

And the pasta
The kitchen smells lovely and dinner will be served shortly.



3 comments:

Ariadne said...

You have whetted my appetite!I love octopus and calamari and squid!I know some people can't stand them!
Our today's dish was pasta like yours with mushroom,pepper and garlic sauce!Delicious and so easy!AriadnefromGreece!

Lisa said...

Looks delicious!!! I also make it like that. Another way is to stuff it with a mixture of olive iol bread crumbs parsley garlic and pepper. I stuff the bodies and cook it whole in tomato sauce.

Anonymous said...

fried kalamari with τηγανιτές πατάτες and green salad!
yum yum! : )