It's been what, six months since I tasted the goodness of the calamari meatballs at The Daily Catch. Since then it has been a personal mission to figure out just how they do it. When I was there last July, I asked the kind waitress what was in them. She said, "just calamari." I was guessing there might be ground veal in there too but she insisted it was just calamari and herbs and spices.
Okay, let's run with that. A few months ago I bought some whole calamari and made an attempt. At the time I didn't have a grinder so I substituted a food processor. Bad idea. The processor rendered the squid a gooey mess. Instead of acquiesing, I forded ahead. After adding some herbs and spices, egg whites, and too much bread crumbs, I did my best to form a ball out of the gloppy stuff, dropped it in a pot of boiling water and ended up with a strangely shaped blob of boiled squid. It resembled nothing I had seen before(click for a pic of the real thing).
Fast forward to yesterday.
Picked up five pounds of whole squid (beaks removed) at the only real Italian market in Miami, Laurenzos. I am now on an OCD mission. I will not be denied. Before I got started, I tried to find some fine Italian opera music. Puccini would be inspirational. Couldn't find it so just ran with the classical selection on XM or whatever is piped in through the cable. With the coarse blade installed, I ran it through the KitchenAid grinder and voila. I got ground calamari.Great. Now where do I go from here? Let's add the appropriate meatball stuff. Some herbs, some spices, egg whites, some Laurenzos Own italian bread crumbs, some minced onion. The typical stuff. Just like the waitress said, "whatever you put in meatballs goes in, just use ground calamari instead of meat." Only now I am armed with a little more intel than what I had the first time. I was tipped off that after forming the balls, they are dropped into a fryer. Okay, makes sense. Maybe. I'll try that.
So now it's time to fire up the fryer. Despite beginning the project full of optimism, skepticism is now creeping in. No...it's not creeping in, it's done moved right in and brought along the wife and kids! The mixture still resembles an amoeba. With serious doubt peering over my shoulder, I drop a few into the hot oil.
The oil does what it does when cold, wet food hits hot fat, it begins that violent, furious dance trying to rid itself of the invader that it hates so much, water.
And therein lies the problem. This mixture was simply way too moist for the fryer. The vaporizing water created such commotion that it literally tore apart what only loosely resembled a meatball. I'm not even sure these things would qualify as fritters.So here's what I do in an attempt at salvage. I take the goop that's left, toss it in a loaf pan and into the oven at 350-400. When it's done, I'm left with a chunk of calamari meatloaf that has lost about a third of it's size, perhaps a little more. Glad I tried that. I now know that the squid must somehow be dried prior to mixing the ingredients for the meatballs.
Back to the drawing board? Not really. Just need to tweak a portion of the procedure. And I'll be back.
UPDATE: After thinking about this and looking at the pic of the original, I'm not really convinced that the real thing is deep fried. The outer skin texture just doesn't look like it has been submerged in hot oil.
4 comments:
Try this ---> Spaghetti with Calamari Meatballs
From Reed Hearon, Rose Pistola, San Francisco, CA
SPAGHETTI WITH CALAMARI MEATBALLS
.... Serves 6
One-third cup extra virgin olive oil
1 and one-half white onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, bruised
2 fresh sprigs marjoram
One-half cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon harissa
14 anchovy fillets
1 pound calamari tubes and tentacles, tubes cut into rings
One-quarter pound pancetta, cut into small cubes
1 egg white
One-half cup bread crumbs
Three-fourths teaspoon sea salt
1 cup dry Italian white wine
1 cup tomato puree made from processing canned drained peeled whole tomatoes or fresh peeled whole tomatoes
2 tablespoons calamari ink
1 cup pasta water
1 pound dry spaghetti
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Saute 1 onion, 1 garlic clove, 1 sprig marjoram, one-quarter cup parsley, 1 tablespoon harissa, and 10 anchovy fillets until the onion becomes translucent. Let cool and remove the marjoram sprig. Pulse the calamari and the pancetta in small batches in a food processor. Add the egg white and pulse again to mix. Place the mixture in a bowl and stir in the bread crumbs, salt and cooled onion mixture. Form into golf ball sized balls (using 2 soup spoons to do so works well). Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat and brown the calamari balls (add more olive oil if needed). You do not need to cook them all the way through as they will finish cooking in the sauce.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium high heat. Saute one-half onion, 1 garlic clove, 1 sprig marjoram, one-quarter cup parsley, 1 tablespoon harissa and 4 anchovy fillets until the onion becomes translucent. Add the wine and cook until reduced by half. Add 2 cups tomato puree and stir well. Dilute the calamari ink with the pasta water and stir into the sauce.
Add the calamari balls to the sauce and simmer for about one-half hour. Taste for seasoning.
Bring a large pot of boiling salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti until almost al dente, about 8 minutes. Bring the meatballs back to a simmer, add the spaghetti and let simmer over medium high heat in the sauce until the pasta is done and the sauce has reduced enough to coat the noodles.
I tried that one Cynnie. It ended up being too bready and didn't hold up well in the browning process. More like calamari pancakes. But thanks for the heads up.
Recipe for squid fritters...may give you some insights re prepping the squid. http://www.tastedefined.com/2016/02/crisp-fried-peppery-calamari-fritters.html
How about treating them like conch fritters. You can tweak the seasoning. Might work. I'd give it a try. A long time ago I blended up a bunch of fresh oysters to make oyster fritters. They were ok but made them a bit differently the next time and they were good. Just gotta experiment!
Btw, I'm from South FL living in the high desert now. Miss the water, though.
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