Spanish-style squid recipe

Squid is a relatively inexpensive seafood and really delicious when cooked slowly like in this recipe, making it soft and tender. Combined with classic Spanish flavours like saffron, garlic and tomatoes, this dinner is packed with tasty ingredients. Make sure you have plenty of crusty bread to mop up the juices with!

Ingredients

• 600g squid (16-20 of them), cleaned and cut into 2.5cm pieces
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into wedges
• 4 fat garlic cloves, unpeeled
• 6 large ripe tomatoes, skinned, quartered and deseeded
• 2 x 400g cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 2 bay leaves, torn
• 1tsp smoked paprika
• 2tbsp good olive oil
• 200ml Fino or Amontillado sherry
• 200g chorizo ring, sliced thickly
• Good pinch of saffron threads (about 1tsp)
• 1tsp whole black peppercorns
• 1tbsp finely chopped mint
• 2tbsp finely chopped parsley
• Crusty bread and salad/greens, to serve

Method

1. Put the squid in a flameproof casserole dish with the onion wedges, garlic cloves, tomato, chickpeas, bay leaves, paprika, oil, sherry and 300ml water. Bring to the boil over a high heat, then cover and reduce the heat as low as it will go and simmer for 45 minutes.
2. Take out the garlic cloves and set aside. Add more water if the sauce is getting too thick. Stir in the chorizo and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, toast the saffron threads in a small, dry frying pan over a medium heat, until they darken. Put them in a mortar with the peppercorns and grind to a powder with the pestle. Squeeze the cooked garlic cloves into the mortar and add 1tbsp of the cooking juice. Pound to a paste and stir this into the casserole. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the herbs and then serve hot with the crusty bread, accompanied by salad or greens.