Alert! Alert! You don't wan't to miss this post! You have never had anything like this before! Come over here, take a look at the pictures and the recipe and tell me you don't want to cook this... I nearly cry when I tasted them!
Chipirones are small squids (5 to 6 centimeters large), these ones where fished by the beach and had a good price. My fishmonger is Super! The best time to get them this size is July, August and begining of September. When October arrives they get their adult size.
This is a traditional Basque recipe and I kind of followed the recipe steps but gave it a little twist.
I'll tell you why. Chipirones are normally stuffed with their own legs, but these ones were so small that I couldn't do that. The recipe ingredients are the ones that the traditional recipe asks for except for the fish stock. So let's call this: Chipirones en su tinta v.2.
Basque people have fantastic seafood recipes. You can have this as a tapa with a good glass of wine or as a main dish. Elaboration of the recipe is for kindergarden ages; the only hard step here is cleaning the squids. Take your time, turn radio on, have a glass of wine while cooking and seduce your man/woman starting with his/her stomach.
Ingredients for 4 servings: 1 Kg of cleaned chipirones, 2 medium onions, 1 Kg of ripe tomatoes, 2 green peppers, 3 garlics, extra ink from a big calamar (you can buy this one frozen, or ask your fishmonger for extra fresh ink), 4 sandwich slices of bread, olive oil, salt and black ground pepper.
- Clean the Squids carefully under tap water, take their main "bone" out and place on a strainer without taking any other parts aside. See that they are clean inside their body.
- Pour some olive oil in a big sauce pan (enough to cover the surface). Add the chopped onion and when transparent add one minced garlic clove. When fragrant add the chipirones, sprinkle some salt and pepper and stir for 5 minutes, if you don't see it becoming black, then add the extra ink's bag. Reserve.
- Start a sofrito with the other chopped onion, one more garlic, and the peppers (chopped in dices), when tender add the tomatoe that you have grated (leaving the peel aside). Taste and add salt and pepper to your taste. Stir and cook at medium/low heat until sofrito is done. As I said many times before, sofrito will be cooked when all the water has evaporated and the tomatoe turns darker and gets oily.
- Use a food blender to get all veggies mixed and then use a fine strainer to leave the peels and seeds there and get a fine cream/sauce.
- Pour the sauce in the Chipirones sauce pan and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir well.
- Meanwhile fry the other garlic (sliced) in some hot oil in a different sauce pan and add the bread cut in small pieces, when toasted reserve over kitchen paper.
- Get the dish ready: Take a earthenware dish and pour the chipirones inside, place the toasted bread on it and some parsley leaves on top.
- This dish goes really well with white rice.
I'm taking these Chipirones en su tinta and a Rioja wine bottle to Stiky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy to celebrate her Blogiversary Bash. Congratulations, Susan :D Let's party!!! One year of blogging is something to celebrate... Happy Blogiversary!
STILL HUNGRY? MAYBE YOU WANT TO HAVE A COLD CARROT'S PUREE WITH IBERIAN ACORN HAM TO COMPLETE THIS MENU :D. If you live in the southern hemisphere maybe you would prefere to have the puree a bit warm.
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