By Keith Lewis
This recipe relies on the locally based Peppermongers Sichuan Pepper to give the coating a zesty flavour and mild heat, providing an adventurous Eastern alternative to calamari. Warning: Don’t try this with just any old black pepper.
Sichuan Spiced Pepper Squid (serves two)
- 1 large Cornish squid (from Dagons in Brixton Village)
- 2 tablespoons Peppermongers Sichuan pepper
- 1 tablespoon of Peppermongers Cubeb Java Pepper (or inferior black pepper)
- 50g plain flour
- 2 teaspoons of dried chilli flakes (or to taste)
- sunflower Oil
- sea salt
- two wedges of lemon
Preparing the Squid…
Clean (or have cleaned) the squid, removing the insides and the thin varicose layer of red outer skin. Then remove but keep the legs and wings and cut the body into rings of about one centimetre in width. The wings can then be cut lengthwise into similar widths. Next, dry out/dab the rings, lengths of wings and legs on kitchen towel to take away most of the moisture.
Preparing the coating…
The pepper seedpods and chilli flakes must be dry-fried (without oil) in a non-stick pan until the fragrance from the pepper starts to hit you (being careful not to over toast it). Once that is done, crush them down into smaller pieces using a pestle and mortar, but don’t entirely obliterate it into a powder – leave some chunks. Mix the flour together with the pepper and chilli.
And voila…
Preheat about a centimetre of the oil in a saucepan (the oil is hot enough when it bubbles at the surface when something touches it). Put the squid pieces into the coating mix and then toss together into the saucepan and fry for around 3-4 minutes (depending on saucepan size you may need to do this in two to three separate portions). Put the fried squid on kitchen towel again to take away excess oil, then serve with lemon wedges.
Pepper fact to spice up the dinner table conversation: The Sichuan Chinese pepper was once used as aromatic confetti.
(Recipe courtesy of Angela Oliva)
