When the octopus is still warm, take it out of the water. Cut off the head and put it inside the body, close up the tentacles and lay the octopus on a large sheet of cling film. Take the edge of the cling film, pull it over the top of the octopus and roll it up very tightly, twisting the ends. It is important to compress the carpaccio firmly, otherwise it will fall apart when you try to slice it.
Wrap the roll of octopus in a clean cloth, let it cool slightly, then put it in the freezer.
When the octopus is completely hard, use a very sharp knife to cut it into thin slices – as thin as you can manage – being careful not to let it warm up or it will be too soft to cut and will break up. If it starts to soften, put it back in the freezer. Lay the pieces, not overlapping, on a tray covered with cling film, then lay another sheet of cling film on top and keep in the fridge until required (it needs a couple of hours).
Mix the tomatoes with Giorgio’s vinaigrette, season and set aside.
When ready to serve, arrange the tomatoes on a serving plate with basil leaves around and put the octopus on top. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with a little sea salt.
‘The flavour of the sea’
If I could have one really good calamari fritti a week, I would be a very happy man. It is one of those favourite childhood memories – like the little gold tins of anchovies in salsa piccante, or the bread with five faces that I used to buy with my Granddad – that have lodged in my brain and make me feel good whenever I think about them.
In the summer, when I was a boy, we used to go and eat in a local pizzeria run by six brothers, all of them short and fat. They came to our restaurant; we went to theirs. It was a great place. All you had to do was decide what kind of pizza you wanted and then before it arrived the brothers would bring out a long tray piled with fried prawns and rings of calamari. The Spanish slice their calamari rings quite thick but Italians cut them very thinly, like wedding rings, and dust them only in flour or semolina – not batter – before frying.
Incidentally, on restaurant menus in some parts of Italy, around the coast of Liguria and also in Sardegna and Toscana, you might come across totano, also called ‘flying’ squid because it shoots out of the water and ‘flies’ over the waves. Totani are longer than squid and they hunt different prey, so the flavour is slightly different and they are a little tougher, but they are cooked in similar ways. The smaller ones are often served in a fritto misto.
Cooking squid at home is easy in one way, because it is very quick, but hard in another, because there is about forty seconds’ difference between squid that is beautiful and squid that is as tough as a shoe sole. Like octopus, squid contains a lot of water, so you have to chargrill or sauté it extremely fast (1—1½ minutes on each side, that’s all) over a very high heat. Otherwise it will just boil in its own liquid, losing flavour and toughening up at the same time. People always tend to worry that it might not be cooked, so they leave it a little bit longer and then – disaster – it is too late.
Many people say that frozen calamari is as good as fresh, but I can tell the difference from a long way off – really I can. For me, when you blast-chill something as delicate as squid, unlike octopus, it sanitises all those unique flavours and the smells of the sea. So, when you buy squid, look for a pearly-white membrane, which shows that it is fresh.
Cleaning squid isn’t the nicest job in the world – I recommend you teach your children to do it as soon as possible, then they can take over. Usually when you buy squid, the head – with its tentacles attached – will be tucked inside the body pocket. So pull out the head, detach it from the body and set it aside. Discard the intestines, which will come out too, then reach inside the body with your fingers and pull out any other innards, including the plastic-looking quill. Throw all of these away. Next, you have to take
off the fins. Pull them downwards so that you pull off the purplish skin at the same time. Throw away the skin and the fins. Then you need to wash the body ‘pocket’ inside and out. I always make my chefs turn the pocket inside out to wash it because it may contain a bit of sand or other debris – who knows? But it is very important to turn it back again – you can tell immediately when somebody has left it inside out, because the outside of the squid has a different, shinier texture. Finally, you should take the head, cut away the tentacles in front of the eyes and squeeze out and discard the beak. Keep only the tentacles.
To grill (or barbecue) squid, slash the pockets down one side, then open them out so that the whole area will touch the grill and pick up the charred flavour. If the squid are thick, bat them out a bit, or slash them on the inside criss-cross fashion with a sharp knife (but not cutting all the way through). If the squid is thin, though, there is no need to do any of this. Chop some garlic, mix it with some olive oil, season it with salt and pepper and then brush it over the squid (including the tentacles) and grill as quickly as possible.
Calamari ripieni alla griglia Chargrilled stuffed squid with tomato
This is a lovely, quite rustic dish. It is simple to make, but relies on very good quality ingredients, so it is another one to do in the summer, when tomatoes and basil are at their best.
The dish dates back to the days when I was cooking at Olivo, and each week we used to get three large boxes of calamari arriving in the kitchen, full of squid of all different sizes.
Because I hate waste – all Italians do – I came up with this recipe using all the squid, big or small, tentacles and all, and it tastes fantastic – despite the fact that this is yet another case of breaking the cardinal Italian rule of never putting cheese with fish.
The finished dish is something between a starter and a soup, almost like squid in a broth of warm tomato salsa. Serve with a knife, fork and spoon and let people dip bruschetta into it.
enough squid (including tentacles) to give you 16 small, intact bodies, plus 2 or 3 extra for the stuffing, prepared as above
4 tablespoons light extra-virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for brushing
2 very ripe large tomatoes, diced
handful of basil
salt and pepper
For the stuffing:
2 anchovy fillets
4