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Squid can be cooked one of two ways: For the blink of an eye, or for a long, long time. Anything in between and it is rubbery.
This dish, which is our version of a Southern Italian classic called calamari in umido, takes the long view of calamari cooking.
Think of this dish as something between a stew and a pasta sauce. It’s every bit as good as-is—with crusty bread, of course—as it is accompanying pasta (go with a short pasta like penne, bowties or fusilli) or, even better, a creamy polenta.
You can even add a little cheese to the polenta, if no one’s looking. Italians rarely mix seafood and cheese.
Calamari Stewed with Tomatoes Recipe
You can buy frozen, cleaned squid in the freezer section of many grocery stores. Defrost by placing in refrigerator overnight, or in a bowl of ice water. This recipe does call for an anise-flavored liquor, which you can leave out if you want, but the dish will be better with it in.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds cleaned calamari (squid), tubes sliced into rings and tentacles roughly chopped
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 sliced onion
- 1 fennel bulb, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/4 cup Sambuca or other anise-flavored liquor
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
- Salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup parsley, chopped
- 1/4 cup fennel fronds, chopped
Method
1 Sauté onions, fennel, garlic: Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the onions and fennel. Stir to coat with oil and sauté, stirring occasionally, until it begins to color, about 5-6 minutes. Sprinkle some salt over it.
Add the garlic cloves and tomato paste and stir well to combine. Cook this for another 2-3 minutes, stirring once or twice.
2 Add the red wine, stir well, and increase the heat to high. Boil until the liquid is reduced by half.
3 Add the Sambuca or other anise-flavored liquor, and the crushed tomatoes.
4 Stir in the calamari and bring the pot to a gentle simmer. Simmer for at least 1 hour. After an hour, taste a piece of calamari; It should be tender. If it’s not, keep simmering. Check for tenderness every 15 minutes afterward.
5 Season to taste with salt and pepper: Once the calamari is tender, taste the stew for salt and pepper, adding if needed. Add the chopped parsley and fennel fronds. Stir well to combine and serve.
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A former restaurant cook and journalist, Hank Shaw is the author of three wild game cookbooks as well as the James Beard Award-winning wild foods website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. His latest cookbook is Buck, Buck, Moose, a guide to working with venison. He hunts, fishes, forages and cooks near Sacramento, CA.
Calamari Stewed with Tomatoes
This was a “use it up” recipe before moving and it’s so tasty. Because I was trying to empty the pantry, the only thing i bought was the fennel (a smaller heirloom variety at the farmers market). Increased the garlic, subbed sweet vermouth for the red wine and Sambuca with a single star anise added during cooking. Bulked it up afterwards with about half a cup of dried quinoa and half a container of italian breadcrumbs with some extra Tuscan Sunset by Penzey’s thrown in. Delicious- weirdly tastes like none of the ingredients but just good! Complex, a bit of bite from something, and very filling.
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This was delicious – so easy and quick to prepare. I served the tentacles as an appetiser with some lemon. Yum.
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I’ve made a similar dish for years. However, I don’t use onion because I find the onion makes it too sweet, and I use more garlic. I also add some black olives and some Vietnamese fish sauce for salt and to enhance the flavor. To the person who finds the squid too tender – you are cooking it too long!
Our family has Calamari with spaghetti every Christmas eve as part of the 7 fishes tradition. The family recipe uses more onion and no anice although I am sure I’d like it as posted. We also grind the tenticles and add the minced tentacles to the sauce (since everyone does not like the tenticles)
Just made this for tonight’s dinner and it was absolutely delicious. I paired it with pasta which was fine but I think next time, I’ll go with polenta or fresh crusty bread. Thank you!
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