Squid in Garlic and Pepper Sauce (Plamuk Tod Gratian Prikthai)
I totally have a sick fascination with cleaning out squid. I never buy pre-cleaned squid tubes or rings. There is no fun in that. I like to buy a whole squid from a fish monger and then clean it out myself. I like the sliminess of ink sacs, cardboardy backbone and half-digested fish.
Anyway, enough about my ridiculous seafood habit. Yes I started this post ages back and no now is not the time. While we are back to the normal aesthetically pleasant white background, I bring bad news. My grandmother is really unwell so I’m off to Thailand for a week or for as long as it takes. Good news is I will be surrounded by family and all the lovely Thai food but bad news is it won’t be a good family moment.
I leave you with a simple, classic Thai dish since I have written most of it before now anyway:
Serves 1 or 2 as shared meal
- 1 fresh squid, cleaned and sliced into bite-sized pieces
- 2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 large cloves of garlic (again)
- 1/2 tsp of white peppercorn
- 2 fresh coriander roots, cleaned
- 1 tbsp of fish sauce
- a pinch of sugar
- 2 tbsp of coriander leaves, chopped
Fry the sliced garlic in some oil until golden. Set aside. Pound the rest of the garlic, peppercorn, coriander into a paste. Heat oil in a wok until smoking, add the garlic/coriander/pepper paste and stir fry for half a minute. Add the squid, stir. Add fish sauce and sugar and stir fry for about another minute. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and crunchy garlic.
Be back when I’m back.
