The squid are poached gently in the volcanic coloured romanesco sauce until they're tender and soft, the star anise scented veal warm, fragrant and hearty. And as well as tasting great, they look good on the plate - I'd happily dish this delicious and different dish up at a dinner party as a starter.
Romanesco is a rich sauce that's easy to make - using smoked paprika, roasted peppers, hazlenuts, red wine vinegar and bread. The texture is thick and there's a slightly sweet taste to it on account of the peppers and nuts, but the vinegar and paprika cut through it giving it balance. If you get bored of making a regular tomato sauce for pasta or fish then give this a crack - it'd be fab run through spaghetti or over salmon before baking.
Now, I'm not going to lie to you, this dish is a little tricky to make and you will need a food processor to do it. It's not that it's complex, just a little fiddly. Firstly, try and get baby squid that are all cleaned and ready for you, if you end up with squid like mine you'll need to spend some time cleaning them, and then the filling of the them is tricky - use a piping bag if you can, otherwise use the end of a teaspoon.
For two:
The squid and their stuffing -
10 baby squid tubes - completely cleaned and rinsed
300g rosé veal mince, mine is from Heaves Farm Veal. They deliver the veal to your door, but if you want to make it before you have chance to buy any, pork or a pork and beef mix would work very well
200mls pasatta
4 star anise
200mls white wine
One red onion, finely diced
One clove of garlic, finely diced
Sea salt and black pepper
Unsalted butter and olive oil for frying
Cocktail sticks
The romanesco sauce -
1 slice stale bread (crustless) blitzed into breadcrumbs
2 red peppers, diced roughly
100mls olive oil
50g hazelnuts
Half a teaspoon smoked paprika
One clove of garlic
Six medium tomatoes
One teaspoon red wine vinegar
Sea salt and black pepper
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 200 degrees, lightly oil the red peppers and roast for 30 minutes until they've softened a little
- Whilst they're cooking, gently sauté the onion on a medium heat until translucent, add the garlic at the end and when you can smell the aroma come out of the pan, add the veal. Brown the veal on all sides before adding a generous scrunch of salt and pepper, the wine, pasatta and star anise. Stir and cover, cook on a low to medium heat for 30 minutes.
- Once ready, discard the star anise then remove the mix from the pan and blitz in a food processor briefly to make the mix a little finer, if you don't do this you'll find getting the mince inside the squid is near impossible. Set aside to cool
- Place all the sauce ingredients into the food processor and blitz continuously until smooth and thick, transfer to a pan with a lid
- Now for the stuffing of the squid, carefully either spoon the veal mix into the pockets or pop it all into a piping bag and fill them that way - much quicker. Ensure you squeeze the mix right down to the end of the squid so you fill them up so they're nice and plump - then using a sewing action, secure them closed with a cocktail stick
- Once you've done them all they'll be likely to have bits of the mix all over them, give them a rinse so they're clean, then place them into the sauce and put the lid on. Turn the sauce onto a low heat and cook them for 20 minutes - you must cook them very very gently as otherwise they'll burst. Turn them over a few times during cooking to make sure they're evenly cooked through
- Serve with a glug of your favourite extra virgin olive oil and remember sunny days in Spain
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