Prepare the richest Andalusian-style calamari

The squid They are very present in our gastronomy and are regularly present in the menus of bars and restaurants especially as a tapa or appetizer. Perhaps it is because we are too lazy to clean them that sometimes we do not dare to prepare them at home, but with this one you will discover how easy it is to fix them and how quickly they cook.

Prepare the richest Andalusian-style calamari with a very light and crunchy batter. You will see that they are tender and very tasty, perfect to serve as a tapa as is or to put them in a sandwich with mayonnaise or aioli, what a delight!

in the recipe You will see step by step how to clean them very easily and in a moment You also have the option of preparing this recipe with fresh or frozen squid, both giving very good results and saving a little with the latter.

If you like calamari, be sure to prepare these classics calamares a la romana or battered calamarithe squid stuffed with meat in saucethe delicious calamari in its ink with white rice or the squids with onions. He is also very good easy and very tasty rice with squid and the black rice with calamari and homemade alioli sauce.

Squid but small are the squid and with them you can prepare these delicious squid in its ink with sauce and white rice or the Grilled baby squid with green parsley sauce. And if cuttlefish is your thing, be sure to prepare this irresistible Grilled cuttlefish with garlic and parsley, with tricks to make it tender or the black rice with cuttlefish and prawns and homemade alioli sauce.

Ingredients to prepare the richest Andalusian style calamari (4 people):

• 4 calamari (about 700 gr).
• Wheat flour to flour them.
• Salt.
• Plenty of olive or sunflower oil for frying.
• Lemon and parsley to accompany and decorate.

Preparation, how to prepare the Andalusian style calamari recipe:

1. If the squid they were frozen (mine was) put them on a tray or container and put them in the fridge the day before so they thaw little by little. If for whatever reason you have not had time to defrost them and although it is not ideal, you can always resort to putting them in a container with cold water and changing the water several times until they thaw, in an hour they could be ready.
2. We start by cleaning the squidyou will see that it is very easy to identify each part and do it, do not be lazy:
   1. Grab the bag and pull the legs. Ideally, the casings will come out with the legs, but if this is not the case, squeeze the bag to expel everything inside, and even insert your fingers or turn it over to empty it completely.
   2. To finish with the bag, pull the pen, it looks like transparent plastic and usually feels hard.
   3. It is not necessary to remove the outer skin as it adds flavor, but in my case, since it was frozen squid, it was a bit undone, so when handling the squid it fell off. In this photograph you can see these three parts already separated.
   4. Now we go with the legs. Cut below the eyes and remove everything except the tentacles. Among those guts is the ink bag whose exterior is metallic and dark in color, you can save it to prepare a recipe with it (if it is not going to be frozen at the moment).
   5. You only need to remove the mouth or beak that the squids have in the middle of the tentacles, it is shaped like a ball. In this case you can see that when cutting below the eyes, it has remained with them.
   6. Wash both the bag and the legs very well under a stream of cold water and leave them in a colander to dry. The rest (guts, feather and beak) throw it away.
3. With the squid Once clean, proceed to chop them. Cut the bag into rings of the size you prefer, although for this recipe I recommend that they be no thicker than 1 cm.
4. The paws chop them so that they remain in groups of 3 or 4 tentacles.
5. Put the rings and the legs of the squid in a colander, wash them well with cold water and let them drain.
6. Dry the pieces of squid with kitchen paper. Then uncover them and throw them some Salt.
7. At this time the ideal is to prepare the oil because as soon as the squid is floured, you have to fry it to prevent the flour from getting wet and in this way we will get a crispy batter.
8. Prepare a frying pan, saucepan or fryer with abundant oil and put it on high heat so that it heats up until it reaches about 170ºC. If you don’t have a thermometer or deep fryer, you should know that the oil has to be very hot but without smoking.
9. While we are going to flour the squid. put on a plate flour and throw into it squid (do it in several batches so as not to fill the plate at once). Move them with your own hands or with the help of a spoon so that they are well impregnated with flour everywhere.
10. Now put a colander on top of the plate and put a first batch of squid (Try that the batches are not too large so that they are fried well without being on top of each other). Move the strainer so that the possible excess of flour that they may have, do it for only a few seconds because we don’t want them to drop it whole.
11. cast now the squid in the oil and fry them until golden on both sides. In this case, they only needed a minute on each side, but if, for example, you use thicker squid rings (those that are already sold clean and cut) you will possibly need a couple of minutes on each side.
12. If you see that they are browning or even burning too soon, it means that you have a very high temperature, so lower it a bit. If, on the contrary, you throw the squid and the oil hardly bubbles and it is difficult for them to take color so the temperature rises.
13. Take them out with a drainer and put them on a plate with kitchen paper that you will have previously prepared and continue with the rest of the batches.
14. As soon as you go out to the plate, throw them a little Salt above.
15. Serve the squids at “Andaluza” style accompanied by a cut of lemon in case you like it afterwards, pour its juice on top (do it only just before eating them) and a little parsley decoratively or even chopped if you prefer.

Time: 20 minutes (plus about 15 minutes to clean them up)

difficulty: easy

Serve and taste:

bring them to the table freshly made and hot to taste them when they are richer, tender and with the crispy batter. It is better that you do not have leftovers because reheating does not suit them very well and the texture of the batter does not recover, in addition to the fact that they can be a bit hard or rubbery.

Enjoy this snack at home so typical of our bars, the fine batter they use looks great and gives them a fantastic touch. Either as is on the plate or in a sandwich they are authentic… scandal!

Variants of the richest Andalusian-style squid recipe:

For batter squid is very common to use chickpea flour or a mixture of half chickpea flour and half fine cornmeal or cornstarch. These mixtures achieve an even crunchier point for the batter, although I personally think they look great with wheat flour and it is a flour that we always have on hand at home.

You can accompany these calamari with some sauce like Aioli either Mayonnaisein fact it is the most classic when it comes to eat them in a snack.

They also taste great in a way that I’ve tried in some restaurants like “onions” and it consists of cooking onion in strips with oil and salt and when it is tender and about to brown, add a little white wine, raise the temperature and in a couple of minutes when the alcohol has evaporated the sauce is ready. Then the calamari is served on top of said sauce and a little chopped parsley is sprinkled on top, very good!

Tips:

You can use fresh or frozen calamari but in case they are frozen, the ideal is that they are whole squid and even better if you buy them in your trusted fishmonger, in this case they will be great, in fact the ones I have used are frozen and they are wonderful. What I do not recommend is buying the typical squid rings, in general they do not have much quality and the texture leaves a lot to be desired.

It is important that you coat the flour just before frying and not in advance so as to get a crispy batter. Also, when frying them, remember not to do it in very large batches to prevent the oil from suddenly dropping in temperature and overcooking more than anything else. Don’t overfry them either because if squid is cooked for too long it hardens.