How to cook frozen squids so that they are soft?

Squid is a delicious product for special occasions: it is not served daily to the table. All the less, the housewives have culinary experience with the clam. Some do not know how to clean, others claim that after cooking, the protein becomes just rubber. How to cook squids so as not to spoil? How do you handle them?

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The squid pulp is very useful, first of all, for our heart, because it contains a large amount of potassium. In addition, it is rich in magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins. There are practically no carbohydrates in this meat, and only 3% of fat is contained. Everything else is a valuable protein that is easily digested. Therefore, the main task in the preparation of mollusks is to preserve their benefits and nutrition, as well as to do everything so that the carcasses are soft and tender.

Most housewives know that prolonged heat treatment can destroy many valuable substances from protein. But not everyone knows that it is the cause of the very “rubberized” squid. We are used to the fact that animal proteins in one form or another must be cooked for a very long time. Therefore, “by default” we attribute this rule to mollusks, which are actually an exception.

The Japanese generally accepted to eat squid almost raw, they are only slightly poured with boiling water. But eating half-raw meat is foreign to our traditions, so you still need to boil carcasses, although much less than usual.

Before cooking

Carcasses are usually sold frozen, in a half-finished state. Therefore, before cooking, they must be thawed and then cleaned. Carcasses should be thawed under natural conditions, without forcing events. That is, they are either placed on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator, or left in the kitchen at room temperature. No “accelerating” immersions in hot or cold water, no defrosting with a microwave: all this will significantly impair the taste and tenderness of the mollusks.

From above, they are covered with a thin film-peel, from which they must be disposed of, otherwise it will give the finished dish an unpleasant sour-bitter aftertaste. In addition, the squid has a “spine” inside - a chord resembling a plastic “braid”, which is also removed.

How to do it? You can remove the film in the same way as peeling, for example, from tomatoes: put in a bowl, pour over boiling water, and then immediately dip into a bowl with as cold water as possible. From a sharp temperature drop, the skin immediately exfoliates. It remains only to pick it up and pull it off like a stocking. The chord needs to be felt with fingers and just pull.

The preliminary stage is over - you can proceed directly to cooking. But this is the case if frozen carcasses were bought already without heads and tentacles. If the carcass is bought unbroken, you will also have to remove the head, entrails, tentacles. To do this, grab the head in the place where it connects to the body (behind the eyes) and pull.

To add any spices to the squid cooking water is a matter of desire. If squid is boiled for salad, usually only salt is added to taste. If you plan to stuff the mollusks or serve them in a sauce, you can also add:

• bow;
• Bay leaf;
• peppercorns;
• carrot;
• dill;
• lemon juice;
• cloves;
• parsley root.

How much to cook calamari?

Cooking squids correctly means fast. That is, exposure to high temperatures should be minimized.

There are 5 main ways to cook squid:

1. The water is brought to a boil, salted, then the mollusks are immersed in it, and they are boiled for about 40-50 seconds, after which the carcasses must be removed. You can hold them in boiling water for a little longer, but no more than 2 minutes, otherwise the squids will get that very “rubberiness”.
2. The carcasses are not cooked at all, but simply subjected to short-term heat treatment: they are placed in a saucepan (but do not put on fire!), Poured with boiling water, covered with a lid and left to simmer for about 3-4 minutes.
3. With this method, mollusks are also not literally cooked. They are simply poured with boiling water several times: the first - when this is done to remove the film, the second and third - after the skin has already been removed. Duration of carcasses in boiling water - every minute.
4. The water is brought to a boil, salted, squid carcasses are lowered into it in a metal sieve for literally 5-10 seconds and immediately removed. When the water boils again, lower the squid again for the same time. After that, they are cooled, and then cooked according to the selected recipe.
5. In the same way, the water is boiled, the carcasses are lowered into the pan, they are covered and the fire is turned off immediately, without removing the dishes from the burner. The clams are left in the pan for 3-4 minutes, after which they are pulled out, allowed to cool and the main course is cooked.

If you are distracted and the mollusks have been boiling for more than 2 minutes, do not worry: they can still be saved. Reduce heat and simmer them for another 40-50 minutes. After that, the protein will become soft again. True, the carcasses themselves will become much smaller, but you will get a fragrant rich broth as a bonus, which can be used to make seafood soup.

Alternative cooking methods

You can cook squid in other ways.

• For example, when time is really running out, you can boil them by taking them directly from the freezer, without preliminary defrosting. To do this, boil the water, add salt and spices to it to taste, lower the squid in boiling water, detect for a minute and turn off the fire. After 10 minutes, you can remove the pan from the stove.
  It should be remembered that with this method, the peel will be removed almost by itself, but it is still necessary to pull out the chord.
• Another option implies that the mollusks are laid in a pot with still cold water and put on medium heat. After the water heats up, it is salted. After boiling, the burner is turned off, and the carcasses are immediately pulled out.
• You can cook squid in the microwave. To do this, they are thawed, cleaned, placed in a microwave oven, poured water and cooked at maximum power for about 2 minutes. When cooked without water, they will begin to behave like eggs (explode and “shoot”).
• If the farm has a double boiler, you can use it. After pouring water into the container and laying the carcasses in the bowl, the double boiler is closed and the timer is turned on for 7-8 minutes. During cooking, you do not need to open anything and try. This is done after the timer goes off.
• A multicooker is also suitable for this purpose. The water in it is first brought to a boil, then the shellfish, salt, spices are laid and the necessary cooking time is set. It can be either 1 minute (most often), or all 40. It depends on the ultimate cooking goal. Some dishes suggest that squids should be cooked for a very long time (by the way, some peoples have similar recipes and for eggs - not the usual 10 minutes, but several hours!).

It follows that a considerable role in the question of how much squid is boiled over time is played by the recipe of the dish for which they are boiled. Sometimes you just need to pour them over with boiling water to remove a thin top skin (for example, if further pickling is implied).

Finally - one more tip: do not despair if for the first time you nevertheless overexpose the carcasses and they will condense. As you know, experience is the son of difficult mistakes. Having made no mistake, few people were able to understand the first time how to do something correctly (and even more so to cook). Cooking is a very subjective occupation. Here you need to learn how to “feel” every product. But this takes time. And you can’t do without stuffing cones.