This is the Eurasian take on squid stir-fried in onions, garlic, dark soy sauce and squid ink. This is adapted from the a similar dish in Portugal. My mum also stir-fries squid in dark soya sauce once in a while though the Teochew tradition has never actually used the squid ink to fry our dishes – just simple dark soya sauce.
To be honest, this is my first time using handling the ink sacs from squids, and I must say it was a very fun experience. It was really amazing how a small sac like that could produce so much ink! And the ink was pure black – a natural dye that can’t be replaced by any artificial colouring. Love it.
I told the guy that we should try out squid ink ice-cream soon, and that I’ll help to extract the squid ink for him. I think he said yes, so I’m looking very forward to it! 🙂
Ingredients:
- Squid: 1kg (about 6, medium-sized)
- Oil: 5 tbsp
- White onion: 3, finely chopped
- Garlic: 10 cloves, finely chopped
- Red chilli: 5, sliced
- Water: 3 tbsp
- Dark soy sauce: 1 tbsp
- Salt: 1/2 tsp
- Parsley: 1 stalk, roughly chopped
Method:
- Clean squids and peel off skin. Remove squid ink sac from head and set aside (refer to Trick below).
- Slice squid tube into rings.
- Heat oil in wok. Saute onion, garlic and red chilli till soft and fragrant.
- Stir in squid, squid ink sac, water, dark soy sauce and salt.
- Cover and simmer on low for 10min till gravy is thick and black.
- Garnish with parsley to serve.
Disclaimers:
- This recipe was kindly adapted from Quentin Pereira’s Eurasian Heritage Cooking.
- This dish is supposed to be spicy, but I used very little quantity of chilli in it as the boy can’t take that much spice yet.
Trick:
- To clean out the squid, pull tail and tentacles away from each other, head and innards to follow. Locate and remove silver ink sacs. Cut away eyes and innards just behind eyes and discard. Squeeze out beak from tentacle base and discard. Remove quill and discard. Wash tube and tentacles.
Serving:
6 persons as side dish
