Huh, almost wrote clones...
Fish feasts have become quite frequent at home - smoked, nitsuke-style long-boiled, pan-fried, honey-almond seasoned, grilled. All quite normal, yea?
Raw fish is also occasionally a thing, although at those times I do make myself a private something.else.please.I.don't.want.to.starve.
And then made scallops a while ago - were quite nice, so when I spotted a nice pack of ready-cleaned (because that was NOT the nice part of the last ones) super-fresh discount ones, our day quickly obtained a second dinner. And, well, shoot, I actually have to learn to make these things now - were really really tasty.
As much as I paid attention to the how-to last time: salt and pepper the scallops, toss into a generous amount of hot butter on frying pan, brown both sides for a few minutes (any longer and the things turn into rubber). Remove from pan and make some sort of magic happen with the left-over liquid and white wine to create a super-yummy fake-lobster sauce. No comments on the accuracy of that last name, seeing as I've never had the real lobster sauce...
In any case, combining those with persimmons and apples might work for some, but is not really my cup of tea - very happy to just munch of the sauce-dipped scallops at high speed. Had you told me this a few months ago, I'd have gotten worried about the state of your mind.
But wait, there is more...
So, squids. In shop. 8 small ones stuffed into a tray, all body parts attatched, eyes peeking from between tentacles. Triggering another domestic adventure.
Home they came, into the sink to be, er, dismembered. Which is done by:
- washing the whole animal
- getting a chopping board and chopping off the part with tentacles that is below (or above, I guess, whichever way you happen to hold the poor bastard, in any case, away from the body) the beak (uhuh, yes, apparently they, as well as octopuses, have one) so that the tentacles still have a ring of tissue attaching them to eachother (makes for a cool shape when fried up) and the beak stays on the rest of the head
- grabbing the body with one hand and the (now tentacle-less but still beaky) head with the other and twisting the head around until the entire digestive system comes loose and can be pulled out... at which part I completely freaked out... I do not, I reapeat, do not, like sucky things... and that head looked like a sucky thing... squishyness of the whole animal does not help at all - took a heap of ... ... eneseületus (for once a word that I know in Estonian but not English, heh) and some actual squealing to pick that thing up do the twister
- rinsing out the shell
- grabbing that one hard point you feel in it's ... neck, for lack of a better word, to pull out a perfect plastic feather (???)
- rubbing off the outer membrane from the body
- tearing off the side-wing-things (that really just come off.. like, seriously, it's like this thing was engineered from different high-tech plastics and barely held together by water-soluble glue)
- de-membraning those and setting aside
- cutting the body-mantel thingy into rings (if you're being fancy) or just slicing it in half (if not)
- then washing off the inner membrane (flipping the rings, if you went that way)
- chopping it into bite-size pieces or rings
Cooking methods vary, we went with dipped in cornflour-paprika-pepper mix and fried in abundant canola oil. Main target is to cook it a ridiculously short time. If not, you'll end up with a plateful of neoprene.
Well. Now I know. Did eat it, didn't run away, but unlike scallops, I don't think these guys are something I'll be bringing home regularly.
Got to be careful now. Or there will be live crabs or something next.
Cheers,
Hedi
