Question
Marilyn Brodhurst
How do you cook Calamari Steak which I recently bought at Costco?
Answer
All right, here we go. So calamari Stakes are typically probably a quarter inch to a half inch thick maximum. I would say Calamar steaks have been. And the Animals been sliced open. So there's a flat sheet rather than the tube that the animal is shaped like in it in life. So calamari Stakes have a tendency to curl up. When you cook when you expose them to heat, so if I put it in a saute pan, right like this and it curls up. Well, I'm not sauteing very much of that calamari now. Am I right? You're only only the part that's touching the pan on a grill same thing. It kind of curls up and the sides get protected from it. So calamari sakes to me our best cooked over high heat. So a good a good heavy bottom or good quality saute pan a good bit of olive oil in there and get it nice and hot till it becomes nice and shimmery and you can tell that that he just starting to build up even wisps of smoke though. I don't recommend getting any path anywhere past that season the calamari early. Okay. So one unfortunate thing about calamari steaks when they're process like that is they are sometimes treated with a chemical water retention agents Brian often sodium. Try Polly phosphate something like that. So that is not to season it the way that we season for taste. That is rather just to retain moisture. Chickens turkeys are often treated with the same thing. And so those cells just become waterlogged the problem with this is that when you put it in a pan and expose it to that heat it sort of exudes that liquid and you end up steaming it rather than sauteing it salt which is a humectant meaning it draws moisture towards it right. Well, it makes the surface of that. Calamari steak a little bit moist right and moisture is the opposite of sauteing you want those high heat above 212 degrees to get that caramelization to get that crust. So if you season it with salt early like 15 minutes or so the salt soaks in and thus actually more evenly Seasons the whole fish. You're not just eating salt on the outside to season what's inside your seasoning more evenly the whole thing and then you can Pat it dry. So you have less surface moisture to it. So you're going to get a better sear to it a better flavor development in it. And then another thing to do is to put a weight on top of it. So as soon as you put it in that pan or on the grill, take a couple of bowls and just stack bowls and put it right on top or if you have like a bacon weight or a burger. Wait, something like that anything to just wait it down to keep the whole surface area of a touching is a great thing to do. All right, then you only need about three. Four minutes or so cooking one side flip it over another minute and you're done. So the key with calamari as well as with octopus is either cook it very quickly or cook it for a very long time and absolutely nothing in between because it just turns Super rubbery. All right.
