One of the most popular squid dishes among Malaysians is fried squid and must be on the menu of every seafood restaurant. A good fried squid has a crispy outer coating but the squid meat inside remains soft and not sticky.
The recipe I will share will probably be a little different from most other recipes. The squid will be coated twice, once with a dry coating of wheat flour only and again with a wet coating.
A dry coating will help, wet coating sticks to the squid. The wet coating will also be mixed using cold water from the refrigerator so that the formation of gluten protein from the flour will be prevented.. It is this protein that will make the coating not crisp and sticky. We will also use some ice cubes to keep the wet coating cool. This technique is also used in Japanese restaurants in the preparation of tempura.
Squid should be fried in enough oil and at a high enough temperature of at least 160°C. The oil will start to look smoky when this temperature is reached. The temperature difference between the hot oil and the cold flour coating will give a crispy fried squid. Avoid frying too much squid at once, fry little by little so that the oil temperature does not drop.
The squid will cook quickly, therefore do not fry for too long as the squid will continue to cook even after it has been removed from the pan. Serve the flour fried squid immediately after cooking.
Ingredients
500g cuttlefish
1 teaspoons of salt
Wet coating material
100g of wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 an egg
1/2 teaspoon of Aji-Shio white pepper
1/2 teaspoons of salt
250ml ( 1 cups) cold water
A little ice
Dry coating material
50g of wheat flour
Method
- Braise the squid with 1 teaspoon of salt and set aside.
- Mix the flour, baking powder, egg, White pepper, salt with 250ml of water.
- Mix well with an egg beater if any.
- Then add some ice cubes and set aside.
- Coat the marinated squid with salt with a thin layer of wheat flour. This will help the wet coating stick to the squid.
- Heat the oil in a pan. Make sure there is at least 1.5cm of oil in the pan and the oil is really hot.
- Dip the squid into the wet coating material and fry until golden yellow. Do not fry too much squid in the pan, fry little by little so that the oil is hot enough.
- Serve immediately.
