Stuffed squid with ricotta

Photo by David Caruana

Only your culinary creativity can limit your ideas on how to cook and serve squid or calamari. I feel that this mollusc can be combined with a variety of ingredients especially vegetables. Artichokes, courgettes, spinach and even broad beans marry well with squid. So have a look at your vegetable storage, see what’s in season and create your favourite squid dish. My preferred option is stuffed squid. This time I am proposing a delicate stuffing with ricotta. I got thumbs up for this one.

Serves 4

• 4 whole squid, cleaned (600g)
• 40g sliced white bread (crust removed)
• 1 garlic clove
• 6 black olives
• 1 tsp capers in salt
• 300g cherry tomatoes
• 2 tblsp dry white wine
• 80g ricotta
• 1 egg
• Oregano
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt & pepper

Finely chop the tentacles of the squid, peel the garlic clove and put the salted capers in some warm water to soak. In the meantime, take a large frying pan, put some olive oil, add the garlic clove and the tentacles and leave on high heat for few minutes, stirring continuously. Pour in the wine and leave to evaporate. Remove the garlic clove.

Blend the bread pieces in the mixer to get rough crumbs. Remove the tentacles from the pan, keeping the frying pan to the side without clearing away the remaining juices. Mix the tentacles with the bread mixture, chopped olives, ricotta, egg, oregano, drained capers and season with pepper. Stuff the squid and close with toothpicks.

Take the frying pan, previously used for the tentacles, add some olive oil and cook the squid for 3 minutes from each side until browned. Add the halved cherry tomatoes, and cook for another 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.