FLOWER POT KITCHEN: SALT AND PEPPER CHILI SQUID

24 Aug 2014

SALT AND PEPPER CHILI SQUID

This is such a great dish, which I eat often, it is full of gorgeous fresh vibrant flavours, the chili, garlic and spring onions give a lovely wok stir fried flavour to the already gorgeous soft tender seasoned salt and pepper squid, a really simple and very very fast wok to table in under 10 minutes meal.

Sometimes I like to do chopping slicing and grating in abundance, if I am going to slice/chop for one recipe I will generally triple the quantity so that the next couple of days all my onions, ginger, garlic, peppers, chillies are ready to go from the fridge so I can still cook with fresh ready to go ingredients, this organisation can shave ten minutes off the overal cooking time. This is something a mum in demand will appreciate!

Ingredients

(serves two)

2 squid tubes

3 spring onions

2 cloves of garlic

2 red chillies

1 glug of ground nut oil

Sea salt

Ground white pepper

As this is such a fast wok to table cook, it is essential to prepare all your ingredients first, take the cleaned squid tubes, if your fishmonger has not cleaned then for you I have given full instructions below. Open the squid tube up, gently score the squid two thirds of the way through, you do not want to cut all the way through, do this on the diagonal two ways to create a criss cross pattern, cut in to rectangles around two inches long, cut any large tenticles in half leaving small ones whole.

Fine chop the garlic, chili and spring onion including the green stems, now you are ready to wok on! Heat your wok to medium hot, add a small glug of ground nut oil, throw in the spring onions, garlic and chillies and stir fry for approx 2-3 minutes until almost coloured, remove and reserve on a plate on the side, return the wok to the heat and add another small glug of nut oil bring up to medium high heat and add the squid, stir fry for approx two minutes until just cooked, keeping the squid soft, juicy and tender, add back the chili and garlic mix and season generously with sea salt and fresh ground white pepper, serve immediately and enjoy this gorgeous healthy dish.

CLEANING SQUID TUBES

Then slide your hand inside the entrance of the tubes as far as you can where all the tentacles are hanging out of and firmly pull out the head and tentacles, this is really easy, place these on your chopping board, then slide your hand inside the empty squid tube and you will feel a plastic like spear and a couple of rods, just pull these out, your squid is now cleaned and ready to score. Open the squid tube up, gently score the squid two thirds of the way through, you do not want to cut all the way through, do this on the diagonal two ways to create a criss cross pattern, cut in to rectangles around two inches long. Take the tentacles and trim away from the squids head and mouth, keep the tentacles and discard the rest.

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.