I was asked for give some of my recipes for my yearly Christmas Eve Seven fishes dinner(
http://www.letstalkbbq.com/index.php?topic=15899.0). I have been swamped at work the past few months with no let up insight so I will slowly add what I can when I can. If you want a specific recipe make a request and I will make sure that is the next one I post. We do it every year and while most things are generally the same year to year some of it depends on what we find or are in the mood for. One of our staples is stuffed calamari.
To make it is pretty easy just takes a little bit of time to stuff the tubes. I found a small funnel at my parents house when I was prepping everything, which turned out to be a huge help. I generally prep most things that need to be cooked and served hot the day of, but I'm sure some things can be done a day in advance, this being one of them.
Sorry for lack of pictures during the process but on this day everything I do is solo with no one around to take pictures.
What you will need:
-Breadcrumbs (I use seasoned Italian, and add more fresh ground black pepper and a couple dashes of cayenne for heat)
-Minced garlic
-Chopped fresh Parsley (make sure they are really chopped to about dried parsley flake size)
-Cleaned Calamari tubes
-Toothpicks
-Favorite tomato sauce or homemade
You don't want the tubes to be huge, about 4" is a good size, if they are bigger you can cut them down to size and use the rest to cut into rings and save them for frying, grilling, or into mixed seafood stew or sauce with pasta. Mix the breadcrumbs, garlic, and parsley in a small mixing bowl. You don't need much, I would say about 1/2 tablespoon (ball park) of mixture per tube. I always have extra breadcrumb mixture and I use the extra with my stuffed clams/clam casino/cake cake that I also make on Christmas Eve. Take the calamari tube and use you fingers to squeeze and try to keep the hole ope. Using the small funnel here really helped and cut my stuffing time in half. I used a toothpick to make sure the garlic wasn't clogging the funnel tube. If you don't have a small funnel just use your fingers and pinch the mixture into the opening a few times. Using the pinch method you will get some of the mixture on the outside, not a big deal. You are not filling the tube completely packed in, you want to spread the mixture evenly throughout the tube. Once you have an ample amount of the mixture (again about 1/2 tablespoon) take a toothpick and close the top in a weave like fashion to pinch the top.
Once you have completed all your stuffed calamari tube heat up in a small sauce pot your sauce. Once it starts to simmer carefully add your calamari and cover with a lid. You may need to do a few batches. Stirring a a few times it should only take about 5-7 minutes to fully cook the calamari and allow the juices from the squid and sauce to be soaked up by the bread crumbs. Serve (<--spell check edit
) with the sauce over pasta or as an appetizer, just warning your guest to be ware of the toothpick. You can remove the toothpick before serving.
Enjoy
I will try and make this again soon and have someone with me to have pictures to better show the process.
