Night of the Squid from Guest Author Philip Gwynne Jones

Vicki here and I’m delighted to introduce you to Philip Gwynne Jones. When I travel, I like to read books set in the places I’m going, and before I headed for Italy two years ago, I asked Marian Misters at Sleuth of Baker Street, in Toronto, for some recommendations. High on her list was the series set in Venice by Philip Gwynne Jones. 

They were perfect! A cat with attitude, exciting mysteries, local flavour, plenty of shopping for food in Venetian markets, and then cooking of the food and drinking of spritzes. I knew Philip would be a great guest at MLK.  If you haven't yet read his books, give yourself a treat and do so. 

Time to get out your passport! 

I hope you enjoy this recipe. 

Hi there! I’m Philip Gwynne Jones, a Welsh writer living in Venice, and I’m delighted to be here at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. I’m the author of the Nathan Sutherland Venetian Mysteries but, when I can tear myself away from the keyboard (something my wife, Caroline, tells me I should do more often), I also love to cook.

I used to buy all my fresh fish at the Rialto Market but, since moving to Dorsoduro, I’ve changed to the fishmonger at Palanca on Giudecca. There are times that I miss the huge variety of choice at Rialto, but Palanca is a lot easier to get to from where I live and they’re a great bunch of guys as well.

Caroline’s new favourite dish is nuggets of monkfish with boiled potatoes, black olives, cherry tomatoes and the best olive oil you can lay your hands on. So, obviously, I need a couple of coda di rospo for dinner on Sunday. I wonder what else to buy for tonight. I was in a swordfish kind of mood, but they haven’t got any. Neither are there any moscardini, so it’s not going to be an octopus weekend either.

But what they have are some modestly-sized squid and some little gamberi rossi. And I think, you know, it’s been some time since I stuffed a squid. So that’s what I go home with…

Squid stuffed with prawns (for two)

Ingredients

4 medium sized squid

200g small prawns (unshelled weight, and you need the smaller, more delicate ones here)

Tbsp capers

Some basil. Not a lot.

Salt, to taste

Method

You could clean your squid yourself. But, to be honest, your fishmonger will do it quicker and better than you ever will, so let them do that.

Caroline had an “Etna” Spritz whilst I prepared this. I had a G&T. 

Take the wings/tentacles/prawns and fry them until just about cooked. Add a few capers – not too many, there’s a delicate flavour to the prawns and we don’t want to overwhelm them. A few basil leaves might be nice as well. Then chop the whole mixture up, but not too finely. We want a bit of texture here!

Give the squid a good old rinse, just to be sure there’s no icky bits remaining in the interior.

Take a tablespoon, and spoon the squid/prawn mixture into the interior. Don’t overfill them. You’ll think you haven’t got enough but, trust me, you have. They will also look a bit pale and floppy, but take courage! 

You should now have four squid “sausages”. Gently fry them until golden. Don’t rush it, take all the time you need here. You want to get a nice golden, caramelised crust on the outside. As you cook them, the squid will contract giving you a lovely stuffed seafood sausage that will look ever so cheffy.

I served this with roasted tomatoes and garlic, and some chilled red wine. It’s summer after all.

Happy eating everyone!

Before:

After:

Born in Swansea, Philip Gwynne Jones first came to Italy in 1994 when he spent some time working for the European Space Agency in Frascati, a job that proved to be less exciting than he had imagined.

He spent twenty years in the IT industry before realizing he was congenitally unsuited to it, and now works as a writer and translator. He lives in Venice with his wife Caroline and a modestly friendly cat called Mimi.

He is the author of the best-selling series of Venetian mysteries featuring English Honorary Consul Nathan Sutherland.

The paperback of the seventh novel in the series, “The Venetian Candidate” is now available. The hardback of the eighth in the series, “The Venetian Sanctuary” is now available in Europe and will be released in the USA on October 4^th.

“Clever and great fun” – The Times

“Worthy of the grandest operas” – Daily Mail

The Venetian Candidate

 Battered by floods and crushed by overtourism, the city of Venice faces an uncertain future. The election of a new Mayor, therefore, has never felt more important.

As the candidates jostle for position and alliances are made and promises broken, Andrea Mazzon, a controversial writer and historian, emerges as a strong candidate. 

Nathan Sutherland, meanwhile, has more important things on his mind as he investigates the case of an elderly British academic who has disappeared while researching the fate of his grandfather during the Great War. The trail leads to a remote Commonwealth war cemetery where, under the ice and snow, Nathan makes a discovery that links the terrible events of a century ago with the electoral campaign in La Serenissima. A campaign that might ultimately set the victor on the road to the Senate - and on the road to murder. . . 

 

Amazon link : https://www.amazon.com/Venetian-Candidate-Philip-Gwynne-Jones/dp/1408715341

 

Stuffed Squid

I was going to try out a new apple recipe (it’s harvest season, right?) until I went to the supermarket and stopped to chat with my favorite fish seller. As I joke I asked, “What? No octopus?” (Not that I’ve ever seen octopus in that store.) She replied, “No, but follow me,” and pointed to a new line they’ve just started carrying, which included frozen squid.

What was in the package

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for several years, a long time ago, and I used to get fresh squid often (and, yes, I know how to clean it). This frozen kind is imported from Thailand and comes already cleaned. (But with tentacles! I love the tentacles!)

The obvious choice for cooking it is to fry it, which is about as simple as it gets: cut the tubular bodies into rings, dredge all the pieces in flour and fine crumbs, fry until golden in hot oil, add salt and serve. I’m sure most of us have had those in a restaurant or pub somewhere, and they do taste good.

But I wanted a “real” meal, not just tasty munchies, so I started hunting and found that Maida Heater had an interesting recipe in her 1973 cookbook, The Classic Italian Cookbook, which I’ve had a copy of for years (love her blender pesto recipe!). Her stuffed squid recipe is simple in terms of flavor, with plenty of garlic. Some of the steps kind of mystify me (do I really have to sew the squid bodies shut so the stuffing won’t fall out?) so I came up with a few variations of my own.


STUFFED SQUID WITH TOMATOES AND WINE 
a la Maida Heater

Ingredients: 

6 squid, cleaned (the number you use will depend on their size--Maida Heater said her squid measured 5-6")

Stuffing:

1 Tblsp olive oil
2 Tblsp parsley, finely chopped
1 whole egg, lightly beaten
2-1/2 Tblsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fine, dry, unflavored breadcrumbs
salt and freshly ground pepper

Cooking liquid:

olive oil (enough to generously coat your pan)
4 whole cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 cup canned tomatoes (Italian if you have them) coarsely chopped, with their juice (this amount seemed kind of skimpy to me, so I added a bit more)
1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic (I usually prefer to use a garlic press)
1/4 cup dry white wine

Instructions:

Mince the tentacles (how often do I get to say that?). Mix together all the stuffing ingredients and blend until fairly smooth. Add enough olive oil to make the mixture shiny (and not too dry).

Minced tentacles!

Fill the squid sacks. I was lucky enough to find some disposable pastry bags in Ireland, so I used one of those to fill the squids, and it turned out to be the perfect size. (And disposable! No washing!)

Then Maida said that we were supposed to secure the open end of each squid by sewing it closed with a darning needle—I vetoed that. Instead I closed the open end with a wooden toothpick. Okay, the stuffing leaked out of some of them, but I wasn’t about to perform surgery on all the little critters. One note: the squids shrink when you cook them, so do not overstuff!

In a skillet large enough to hold the stuffed squid in a single layer, add enough olive oil to coat the bottom well and heat over medium-high heat. Add the whole garlic cloves and sauté until they are golden, then discard them and add the stuffed squid to the pan. 

Brown the squid on all sides, then add the chopped tomatoes and their juice, the chopped garlic, and the wine. 

Stir, then cover tightly and cook over low heat for 30-40 minutes (or less, if your squid are small, which mine were). They should be tender when poked with a fork.

Remove the cooked squid to a cutting board and let them rest for a few minutes. Remove the toothpicks (don’t forget!), then Maida said to cut the squid bodies into half-inch slices. Mine were tiny after cooking, so I left them whole. Arrange on a platter or individual plates.  Warm up the sauce in the skillet and pour it over the sliced squid. Serve immediately.

For some reason that escapes me, Maida suggested serving these with steamed potatoes. Seems an odd choice to me. Rice or pasta would work well, and I chose orzo.

If I could find larger squid, I’d go with them. As it was, the results were a bit messy, but they definitely tasted good.

I'm still up for trying to cook octopus, if I ever find any.

Small update: the 12th Orchard Mystery now has a name: Nipped in the Bud! It will be released in print format by Beyond the Page Press at the end of October. Any day now we will have a cover for it!

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