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Easy squid, sweet Romano pepper and Basmati rice salad recipe

squid and romano peper saladSupermarkets are clever. They mark down their soon to be out of date produce. Someone might buy it before it is swept off the shelf and banished (hopefully to a homeless shelter). Danny haunts these shelves when he does the final post run down to Newmarket in the evening.

I often return home to find a few bargains on the kitchen table. Last week he had found a fat bag of previously frozen squid,
“They were such a bargain that I grabbed them.” There is always a posse around the Tesco shelves.

The next evening I returned to find him frying the squid. Great.
“is it seafood tonight?”
“No. I’m just cooking them. We can have them over the weekend. I just don’t want to waste them.”

I spent a lot of Saturday in bed. I was working on a website for a friend. Danny served a decent cooked breakfast on a tray as I tapped away. At three I got up, feeling a bit peckish. I opened the fridge door and discovered a tub of Basmati rice (pre-cooked and carried back with chortles from the cut price Tesco section) and the fried squid. I rustled up this salad with finely sliced Romano peppers, a dressing made with nut infused vinegar and rape seed oil and lashings of freshly ground black pepper. It was excellent. Perfect for a light lunch or starter. I had a second helping of this and finally scraped out the bowl. This is a delicious ‘cut price food section’ recipe, I am sure that it would be even better if you made the spicy rice yourself.

Easy squid, sweet Romano pepper and Basmati rice salad recipe

Ingredients:

  • Half a tub of pre prepared Basmati rice
  • 300g of supermarket squid (washed and sliced into 1 cm rings. We leave the baby squid whole)
  • 1 clove of garlic (crushed and chopped
  • 2 tblsp of olive oil
  • 1-2 tblsp of fresh lemon juice

Method:

  1. In a heavy bottomed frying pan gently heat the olive oil and garlic over a low heat.
  2. Add the sliced squid and after 2 minutes whap up the heat to hot (this is to allow the squid heat up initially) and toss the squid. Add the lemon juice, stir and cook the squid for 2 minutes (high heat). Remove the pan from the heat (four minutes in total cooking time).
  3. Allow the squid to cool and then add to the Basmati rice.
  4. The nut vinegar and rape seed oil dressing is easy. Add a dessertspoonful of nut vinegar to two tablespoons of rape seed oil. Whisk and add more nut vinegar to taste. Stir through the salad

Give the salad a hefty sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper and serve on cold plates ideally with chopped herbs.


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3 Comments

  1. Fiona Nevile

    Hi Joanna,

    That sounds like a great recipe. Thanks!

    We used to eat a lot of squid but gradually stopped buying it. Even at full price it is inexpensive. Cooked well it is great. It™s on the list for next week. Can™t wait to try your recipe.

    Thanks for dropping by.

    Hi Amanda,

    Spicy rice with chorizo sounds good although unlike your brother in law, I’d like some crispy peppers and herbs with this.

    Your little foodies are an inspiration!

  2. We love squid! It’s one of Little’s favourites. I think Fiona, that we were on the same wavelength on Saturday – what with the drinks and all. My brother in law turned up before heading to a late party in London. I made a quick spicy rice but with chorizo, he can’t stand fish or seafood of any sort, nor vegetables really, so spicy rice with chorizo is something I knew he’d eat. I love it that the children look at him as though he’s from another planet when he says the foods that he doesn’t like. We are seriously lucky!

  3. I often buy squid marked down from the fish counter in Waitrose – perhaps people are too squeamish / lazy to chop it themselves. Then I chop them roughly, drain them in a colander, toss them in a little cornflour and a lot of pepper, then fry them in olive oil and eat them hot with a lot of lemon juice and a little green salad. Delicious

    Good to have an alternative to try

    Joanna

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