Comments on: Spicy Ika Salad

By: erin_NJ

erin_NJ — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:44:02 +0000

Awesome, I remember cleaning whole squid with you many moons ago and it was a slightly disgusting experience. I’m happy to say mine is wild caught, cleaned tubes! Of course, with the peppered calamari recipe on the back of the package, I’m now fighting which I want to make first!

Long live le squid!

By: john_houston

john_houston — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:54:14 +0000

Sashimi quality squid comes already cleaned as a general rule. It should be very white, shiny and somewhat translucent. If your whole squid are very fresh or very fresh frozen they can be used but they must be skinned and gutted. Remove the pen (plastic looking sheet) in the mantle or body. Remove the head and sever the tentacles around the mouth. Reserve them for calamari or another prep. Rinse well in salt water. If the squid is too slippery, rinse it quickly in vinegar and then salt water before you slice it.

Tobiko is preserved so it has a couple of week shelf life refrigerated and up to a year frozen. It should be shiny, almost jewel-like and be a bright color; orange is traditional but it also comes in black and green. There isn’t much variation in flavor between the colors even though it is sold as wasabi or ink flavored.

Kathy built a batch of kimchi this weekend so look for a post soon. I’ll put the miso request on the to do list so it should pop up before long.

By: erin

erin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:04:16 +0000

I have to say this was my favorite thing that you made when we were in Colorado…perhaps even in my top 20 favorite things to eat PERIOD. But I have a few questions:

1. How do you know it’s quality squid?

2. We just bought some frozen whole squid from a local grocery…what are the next steps on that?

3. Are there any rules on finding/buying good tobiko? I would imagine bad tobiko would be pretty nasty.

PS. I’d love a post covering miso and a basic miso soup recipe!! Same for kimchi!