How Fried Calamari Should Really Be
This has become a pretty rare dish to find on menus, and from our experience, this dish is done badly when we do order it - batter cooked in stinky oil + odd textured squid.
If this is your experience, let’s collectively be sad that justice is not given to this beautiful ingredient! We think the natural flavours of the squid should be the highlight of this dish, so we made a recipe that only has a thin & lightly seasoned batter.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
All purpose or plain flour
Semolina or rice flour (*optional for extra crunch)
Dried italian herbs
Cayenne pepper
Smoked paprika
Garlic powder
Salt
Black pepper
Avocado oil (or neutral oil)
Tip: We don’t have any measurements because as long as you have enough to coat the squid, you are good. You can get away with seasoning the flour mixture more heavily as not all of the seasoning will stick on the fried calamari throughout the cooking process. Add more than what you normally would add.
Method
Clean squid and cut it into rings
This is a super important step, so do this well - Dry the squid rings completely with paper towels. Skipping this step is going to cause accidents in the kitchen because the moisture from the squid will cause hot oil to splatter!
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the dry batter and mix well
Heat a pot of oil on medium heat; Use enough oil for deep frying (Our tip would be to use a smaller pot so you don’t have to use as much oil. This means you will have to dry in batches, but it gives you a chance to adjust heat and timing as you go to get the perfect fried calamari!)
Coat dried squid rings with dry batter, and deep fry in hot oil in batches until golden brown. Do note that the squid will continue to cook & brown very slightly once taken out of the pot so do account for that!
Serve with a generous squeeze of lemon and favourite dip of your choice!
