House of Annie

Cookbooks Galore

We happened to be at Popular Bookstore, a bookstore in the nearby BDC neighborhood of Kuching. They have a wide selection of cookbooks, but not the usual ones by international publishers and authors famous in the West. These were mostly books by local authors and publishers, focusing on local dishes and cuisines. Annie was in heaven.

One of the books she was reading was called “Mama Steamed Delicious” by Jamie Jong. It was all about steaming different kinds of savory Chinese dishes. Annie kept saying to me, “Ooh, look at this recipe! I wanna make this!”

One of the recipes she was interested in trying was this Steamed Stuffed Squid. It looked simple enough, and sounded like it would taste terrific. So, she bought the book. Soon after, we went to the market to pick up some large squid and other ingredients.

Steamed Stuffed Squid Recipe

adapted from “Mama Steamed Delicious” by Jamie Jong

Ingredients:
400 grams squid (cleaned, heads & skin on)

Filling:
300 grams minced poprk
1 salted egg
1 Tbsp chopped garlic
1 Tbsp chopped shallots
dash of pepper

*Note: the original recipe called for a salted egg but we used a regular egg and about 1 Tsp of salt.

Method:
1. Clean out the squid bodies, reserving the heads and not removing the skin.

2. Mix the filling ingredients.

3. Spoon the filling into each squid, about 3/4 full.

4. Use a toothpick to skewer the squid and secure the head back onto the body.

Stuffed Squid, Ready for Steaming

5. Steam over high heat for 15 minutes. Remove and let cool before cutting the body into chunks.

6. Arrange the squid chunks and spoon over some of the liquid collected from the steaming plate.

Serve with rice.

This was a completely delicious dish. The minced pork filling with the garlic and shallots was so tasty! I ate my squid with a little sweet chili sauce drizzled on top. The kids gobbled up their squid pieces (sans chili sauce) and declared to Mommy that it was good.

I am amazed that this steamed squid dish was so easy to prepare. The hardest part was cleaning out the squid. But if you can get your fishmonger to do it for you, then this recipe wouldn’t be hard at all!

I hope that you will get to try this steamed stuffed squid recipe out.

Aloha, Nate

Cleaned it out (that part took longer than I thought—first mistake I made in buying those much too small squid), cut them into rings. Tried a really simple recipe that looked way easy and pictures looked way delicious.

Squid Pieces Soaking in Milk

The instructions in that recipe said, “Don’t fry squid for more than a minute otherwise they will get tough.” Ok, so I fried them for all of 20 seconds (in my heightened anxious state, every second seemed like 10 seconds). Dumped them on a paper napkin and fried some more (in batches right? For maximum crispiness?). Um, no…

I made so many mistakes. You already know mistake number one—they were too darned small (hard to clean, and see…squid shrinks when they cook so they turned out even smaller). Then there was the whole laying down my fried calamari on paper napkins—not wise at all. This from the woman who has advised you all to never let deep fried chicken touch a napkin lest you get a soggy mess. I mean, what was I thinking? Yeah, I blame that heightened state of anxiety again. Obviously, it short circuited my brain.

Mistake number three? Frying them for all of 10 seconds! Wait, didn’t I just say 20 seconds? I LIED! I tell you, I just stuck them in the oil (which was also too hot), and then before Nate (who was helping me) could pick up his camera to take a picture, I was screeching, “Take them out, they’ll be overcooked and taste like rubber! Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

So, we ended up cooking the half kilo and when we were done with the last of it, I turned to the plate and realized that the earlier batches were soaking in oil (because I didn’t have time to let it drain well in my hurry to remove the ones I had just put in) and the napkin was soaking up all the oil which was then being resoaked back into the squid.

So what did we have? A soggy, lump of battered squid. The last ones were still decently fried BUT when we took a bite, we might as well have had squid sashimi. They were undercooked, underwhelming in taste and certainly UN-crispy.

Fried Squid Fail

I don’t blame the recipe I tried. I am sure it would have worked out better if I wasn’t hyper with nervousness about cooking squid. And I’m sure it would have been better if I had eased myself into cooking squid by doing something a little less challenging. I mean, talk about trying to conquer all my fears at one time. I already have issues with deep frying and to try to do squid for the first time AND deep frying is just cooking suicide. I thought I was being so bold and brave and sticking my tongue out at those taunting squid. I think I was just over ambitious.

So my first attempt was dismal. In this fight, the squid won and Annie went down in disgrace. Final tally—squid:1, Annie: 0.

But hear this squid—there will be other days ahead. I will pluck up my courage again and try another dish. And when that day happens, I will rise victorious and your taunts will no longer bother me.

Cheers, Annie