Growing up in a family that was influenced by so many different cultures, I learned the secrets to making fabulous food early on. As I got older, I perfected many of these secrets and they now belong to my repertoire of go to recipes that I am compiling. One of these dishes is fried calamari. Oh, it sounds easy enough, but you can’t imagine how many times I have had it in restaurants where the final result was absolutely atrocious! It can be a difficult item to cook for a few reasons. Well, I guess we can start with the texture. If this is not cooked correctly, the texture remains rubbery and inedible that no amount of delicious dipping sauce can remedy. Secondly, the slick surface of the calamari makes it difficult for the breading to adhere, but there are a few tricks that I picked up that will give you a perfect result. Lastly, I have even had people tell me that you need to fry them in old oil in order to get that beautiful golden color. What did they just say? Well, I don’t know about you, but I never cook in old oil and I get this beautiful result each and every time.
To correct the tenderness, I use a mixture of yogurt and water and I soak the calamari overnight for best results. You can probably use buttermilk, but I usually don’t have that around…but I always have yogurt. I do the same thing to tenderize my pork when I make souvlaki, but I only soak it for a few hours or it will get mealy. The breading I use is only flour with a few other ingredients that is tossed in with the calamari to give it a good coating, and then allowed to rest on a plate uncovered for a few hours. Right before frying, I add a little more flour and toss to recoat. After sitting in the fridge for a few hours, the moisture from the calamari has been absorbed by the flour and created a sticky batter on the surface. By adding a little more flour before frying creates a crispier product and one that will not create oil splatter when you fry it. And, what is the secret to the golden brown color? Well, that is a trick I picked up as a Pastry Chef. I add a little baking powder to the flour which will help in the crispiness of the final result and will also add color, as it does for baked goods. So…there you have it! Now go and make some for yourself….I guarantee you will love it!
***An original recipe from www.goodfoodgourmet.com
Perfectly Fried Calamari
2# calamari tubes and tentacles
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup filtered water
1 ½ cups plus 3 Tablespoons flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
Canola oil
S&P
Lemon wedges
First clean your squid tubes and cut them into uniform rings about 1” wide (if you cut them too thin they will burn and dry out when frying). Rinse well after slicing and drain in a colander. Put the calamari into a medium sized bowl and add the yogurt and water. Stir it well to mix everything in together. Make sure the liquid completely covers the calamari. Cover the surface of this mixture with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight for best results, or at least 5 hours. When ready to bread the calamari, toss them into a colander and rinse well under water to remove all of the yogurt mixture and drain well. Add 1 ½ cups of flour, the baking powder, salt and pepper to a Ziploc bag and add in the rinsed and drained calamari. Toss this well for a few minutes until the calamari is well coated and you don’t see much flour left in the bag. At this point, put the calamari into a large dish and try to separate the rings as much as you can. Put this dish into the refrigerator uncovered for 2 hours, so that the breading has time to dry out a bit and adhere to the calamari. When you are ready to fry the calamari, heat the canola oil in a skillet to 375°F. You should have about 2” of oil in the skillet for this amount of calamari, and you should plan to cook them in 3 batches, so that you do not over crowd the pan. Before frying each batch, add 1 tablespoon of flour over the calamari and toss it in with your fingers. If any of the sticky batter on the surface is still wet, the oil will splatter. Adding the flour will prevent this from happening.
Remove each batch onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain the oil and then you can move them over to a sheet pan with a cooling rack so they stay crispy. (This is an extra step that you don’t have to do if you are making a small batch).
Each time you remove a batch from the oil, sprinkle a little salt and pepper while still warm. When finished, pile onto a serving platter and serve with sliced lemon wedges or homemade mayo or marinara sauce…delicious!
www.goodfoodgourmet.com
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