Stir-fried Squid with Fresh Fruit Sambal and Squid Ink Sauce
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Cleaning whole squid (by removing its tentacles, quill, beak, membrane and entrails) and keeping the tube intact can be a step too far for many home cooks. There are loads of YouTube videos if you fancy giving it a crack, but if you’re not comfortable, ask your fishmonger to clean the squid for you. You can leave the squid ink out of this recipe if you prefer; the colour won’t be black, but it’s still delicious.
Recipe details
Serves: Recipe for 4.
Protein: Seafood
Ingredients
120 ml (4 fl oz) peanut oil
2 large shallots, minced
5 garlic cloves, minced
12 finger-length red chillies, seeds removed and minced
7.5 cm (3 in) piece ginger, diced
80 ml (2½ fl oz/⅓ cup) good-quality fish sauce
120 g (4½ oz/¾ cup) peanuts, roughly chopped
juice of 2 limes
60 ml (2 fl oz) squid ink, optional
1 large squid, cut into 2 cm × 2 cm (¾ in × ¾ in) pieces
100 g (3½ oz) ready-made shallots to garnish
Fresh fruit sambal
1 mango, finely diced
4 lychees, peeled and finely diced
2 mangosteens or a small amount of pineapple, finely diced
1 tomato, finely diced
1 lime, segmented and then minced
Method
Put 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil in a frying pan over a medium–high heat, then add the shallot, garlic and chillies and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to darken. Pour over the diced ginger and 2 tablespoons of the fish sauce and remove from the heat.
Put all the fruit for the sambal in a large bowl, combine it with half of this mixture and set aside.
When it’s cooled down enough to blend, in a blender blitz the other half of the mixture with the peanuts, lime juice, squid ink and 40 ml (1¼ fl oz) of the peanut oil until you have a thin black sauce.
Get a wok or large frying pan nice and hot and sauté the squid quickly with the remaining peanut oil. Once it’s cooked (it should only take 2 minutes or less) pour over the remaining fish sauce and remove from the heat.
Put the black sauce down on the bottom of the plates, followed by the fresh fruit sambal. Top with the squid, scatter over the fried shallots and dig in.