Love, empathy, tolerance--also puppies, flowers, and laundry

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Cephlapod 9-1-1

Squid Boat Salad. Just in case you were wondering.

Take 12 squid mantles. That's the easy part. All you have to do is boil and stuff them with a cheese mixture, cradle them in endive leaves (the boat?) and serve over minced red cabbage with salad dressing.

But getting those mantles--well, just let's say that cleaning the whole squid to obtain the mantles is not for the squeamish:

Pull off and discard thin speckled membrane from the mantle. (Note to self: the word "membrane" does not belong in any recipe. Ever.) Gently pull body (the tentacle end) from mantle (Yuck). Pull out and discard the long, transparent, sword-shaped shell (I don't need that many adjectives, folks) from inside the mantle.
Wait, it gets grosser:

Squeeze out (oh, my!) and discard contents of mantle (double yuck); rinse mantle inside and out (it probably needs it after all that pulling and squeezing, I know I'm feeling the need for some brain-washing to forget all this). Turn body upside down to spread tentacles open (this I could do). Squeeze body gently from beneath (or not)to pop out (!) the beak in the center; discard beak. Cut off and discard portion with eyes and ink sac (yeah, like I would keep'em). Rinse tentacles.
Thank heavens that's over. And to think I went to a lot of time and trouble to fish (sorry for the pun) it out of the trash just for y'all. Sometimes cooking is a little too graphic. Apparently Sunset Magazine thought we were ready for it back in 1987. They were wrong.

I don't think this recipe is related to Swift Boat Salad which will probably be served sometime in the upcoming campaigns. But of the two, I'll pick Squid Boats over Swift Boats every time. I'm picky that way.

4 comments:

  1. This recipe reads like somethig you would give a young maiden on her wedding night.....to be helpful.

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  3. Oh man. That sounds gross.

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