You need to salt the water when you cook squid. How and how much to cook frozen squid so that they are soft (rings, fillets, whole carcasses), for salad and other needs

9 months ago

Seafood is incredibly popular. Cooks often use squid to prepare delicious appetizers or holiday salads. Of course, if you live far from the ocean coast, finding fresh shellfish is not an easy task. But you can buy them frozen in any supermarket. Today we are discussing how long to cook squid for salad.

Unremarkable mollusks with tentacles and a slippery body are loved by gourmets from all over the world for their amazing taste, high nutritional value and low calorie content.

Not all housewives know how many minutes to cook squid for salad. Their cooking time is 1.5-2 minutes. Now let's take a closer look at some of the features.

Advice! You should not cook squid meat for a long time. Otherwise, it will lose not only its natural taste, but will also resemble rubber in consistency.

So, how long to cook a squid carcass for a salad if it is not cleaned and fresh? It is first necessary to prepare the shellfish for heat treatment. After thoroughly washing the squid under running water, place it in boiling water for a few seconds.

After this, the film is easily removed. You also need to remove the plates inside that resemble plastic in appearance. Place squid carcasses into boiling water for exactly 2 minutes. After cooling, they are crushed and added to the salad.

How long does it take to cook cleaned, thawed squid for salad? In this case The duration of their heat treatment is also 2 minutes. And here squid rings cook a little faster - in 1.5 minutes.

Some cooks have questions about defrosting shellfish. It is best to do this in a natural way. Leave the squid in the refrigerator to thaw. If you want to speed up this process, you can immerse the squid carcasses in water at room temperature or leave them at the same temperature threshold without adding liquid.

On a note! Do not use a microwave or hot water to defrost seafood. This will hopelessly ruin the amazing taste of squid meat.

When dishes with squid are chosen for a festive table or fun, the question immediately arises: how to properly process the purchased seafood so as not to lose taste, weight, and all the benefits that it contains. The answer to this question is simple: you need to properly cut and cook this delicacy.

But how to do that? First, you need to decide on a recipe that requires seafood. Then you need to buy good seafood, cut it and process it. How to do this is written below.

It is better to buy unpeeled seafood. Why?

Firstly, they are easy to clean yourself. In this case, it is possible to purchase a fresher product.

Secondly, after industrial cleaning, seafood is processed, after which it becomes hard and rubbery. If you cook seafood correctly at home, then its taste will remain as delicate and refined as it should be.

In addition, with any method of preparing seafood, you should remember that it has white meat with a very soft, tender and juicy taste. You cannot cook it longer than the time indicated in the recipe, unless, of course, the purpose of cooking is to throw away spoiled delicacy meat.

Seafood can be boiled, fried, stewed with vegetables, or even baked. How to cook squid is written below.

When boiled squid appears in a recipe, the question immediately arises: how to cook them correctly? And most importantly: how much?

Everyone answers this question almost the same way - not for long. But how many minutes is this? But here opinions already differ. The most common answers range from simply scalding them with boiling water to boiling them for over 30 minutes. So, if this delicacy is on the table, how long should you cook it?

Answer: about one minute after placing it in boiling water without subsequent boiling.

Why is this so? To understand the answer to this question, you need to figure out what happens if you cook the squid for a different amount of time.

What happens if you simply scald a squid with boiling water?

His skin will come off, especially if you immediately immerse him in cold water afterwards. In order for it not to be raw, you need to keep it at least a little, but still keep it in boiling water - even up to one minute.

What happens if you cook squid for one minute?

It will cook, remain soft and juicy, and retain the beneficial substances that are so easily destroyed in boiling water. Cooked in this way, it will be ready to prepare various dishes from it.

What happens if you cook squid for 5 minutes?

Nothing good. During this time, it will have time to become hard, tough and acquire a rubbery taste. He will have time to do all this, even if they cook for only three minutes. But for white meat, three minutes in boiling water is a lot.

What happens if you cook this seafood for about 15 minutes?

Answer: the same thing that will happen to it after three minutes of cooking, but it will become even more rubbery and nasty in taste. No, of course you can eat it, but it’s better not to. Moreover, the longer the squid is cooked, the harder the meat tastes. But in theory, white meat should be the standard of tenderness and softness, and by preparing for so long, the finished dish risks discouraging the person who eats it from taking up cooking again.

What happens if the squid takes more than half an hour to cook?

But here a miracle will happen - it will become soft again! True, it will lose about half its weight, lose all its beneficial properties and significantly decrease in volume.

You should not cook the squid for more than one minute if it seems that it is not ready yet - it is perfectly prepared and can already be used. Its meat is very tender and soft, and these properties should not be destroyed by lengthy processing.

In a saucepan intended for boiling squid, boil the required amount of water; you can lightly salt it. Pre-cleaned seafood should be placed in a convenient bowl or plate; a prepared container for cooked squid, for example, a tray, should be placed nearby. You will also definitely need a slotted spoon; with its help you will need to remove the finished seafood from the boiling water.

1. Seafood ready for boiling should be cooked gradually, one piece at a time. To do this, you need to put one squid in boiling water, wait 40-50 seconds, and remove the carcass with a slotted spoon. There is no need to wait until the water boils again - even this water temperature will be enough for the squid to cook in such a short period of time;
2. After removing the first squid from the water, you need to give time for the water to boil again. Seafood should only be immersed in boiling water. Using the method described above, you need to cook seafood one carcass at a time until they are ready. But in no case should you throw more than one carcass into the water - while the first one is pulled out with a slotted spoon, the second one will already harden, and the last one will become completely unusable.

It should be understood that in order to cook squid meat, it may take time and skill. You shouldn’t try to save a few minutes at the expense of the taste of the dish - after all, squid still has a refined, delicate taste of white meat.

If the squid was purchased frozen, then upon arriving home from the store you should immediately put it in the freezer. The fact is that it cannot be defrosted twice, so it should be handled only before cooking.

What to do with frozen squid?

1. It is best to defrost them in the refrigerator, but if there is not much time left before cooking, then you can do it at room temperature. However, you should not put the squid in water - some of the nutrients will move into it, and in addition, the seafood will lose some of its taste;
2. Then you should cut off the head - it is still inedible. Through the resulting hole, the chord should be removed - a kind of transparent spine. It feels like plastic. You should also remove all the entrails and film, then wash the seafood;
3. To remove the skin, you need to pour boiling water over the carcasses and then immediately put them in cold water. It will fall behind and curl up on its own, all that remains is to remove it with your hands.

Now the seafood is ready for further processing!

One thing about squid: what to do with it?

Sometimes when cutting up a squid carcass and removing the entrails, you can find a vial with black contents. This is squid ink. Under no circumstances should they be thrown away. The best thing to do if you find something like this in a carcass is to empty the contents of the bag into a bowl, add different amounts of water and freeze.

But you can’t freeze ink in its pure form - it will immediately curl up and you can only throw it away. While they are freezing, you should go looking for a recipe with ink.

The benefits of squid meat for modern people living in our country far from the sea are obvious. Meat contains many vitamins and fats that cannot be obtained from other foods. If you know how to cook so that they are soft, then you can more often introduce this ingredient into your daily and holiday menu.

Is it possible to cook unpeeled squid?

When answering the most popular question from owners about how to cook unpeeled frozen squid, you must immediately say “no way.” First of all, the carcass should be cleaned, and then cooked. To clean frozen squid, you need to pour boiling water over it: the skin will quickly shrink and remain under water, just wash it off. After boiling water, the meat is already half cooked, therefore, it is important not to overcook it during further heat treatment.

Cooking squid for salads

Many housewives, after pouring boiling water over the carcass for cleaning, simply leave the meat in the water for another five minutes. Next, the product does not need to be cooked; it is already ready to be processed into a salad. But you will need to additionally remove the skin and sprinkle the prepared meat with lemon juice. For those who do not like such minimal processing of seafood, there are two ways to cook squid for salad so that it is soft.

Method No. 1

You will need to take a liter of water, add salt and peppercorns to taste, and a bay leaf. Now put the carcasses into boiling water and just wait until the water boils again. After this, remove the meat immediately.

Method No. 2

You can also cook the carcass alternately. This means the meat is immersed in boiling water. Then the housewife needs to count to ten and take out the carcass. Do the same with each product. The advantage of this cooking method is that you can control the cooking process in real time. If the carcass is large or small, then the housewife can reduce the counting time, focusing on a specific situation.

Method No. 3

To cook a kilogram of squid, you will need to boil two liters of water. Salt the water well and add the squid carcass. Remove the pan from the heat after half a minute. But leave the squid in the water with the lid closed for another 5-10 minutes.

Method No. 4

For this cooking method, you will need a slotted spoon; it will help control the entire process. Salt and spices are added to the water to suit your taste. Wait until the water boils. Then, using a slotted spoon, lower the squid into the water for five minutes, and after five seconds, remove it. When the water boils again, lower the same squid again and quickly remove it. Also do about five times. You can cook with this product.

Important! In the process of how to cook frozen squid so that it is soft, the spices that are added to the water are not so important. But additional spices will give the meat a special flavor. The most commonly used are peppercorns, cloves or dried dill, parsley, and bay leaves.

How to steam squid

We have already found out how delicate and useful the described product is. But, when properly cooked in water, meat still loses some of its nutritional properties and fats. To preserve them to the maximum, you can use the steaming method.

For this method of cooking squid, you need to have either a special steamer or a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Cooking meat in this way takes longer than in boiling water: about 10 minutes. But there are a certain number of advantages to steaming. First of all, it is the juiciness and tenderness of the squid. Carcasses do not shrink in size as much as when cooking meat in boiling water.

When cooking squid for salad, many housewives advise immediately cutting the carcasses across the grain into rings or strips. But, it should be borne in mind that then the cooking time in boiling water should be reduced to a minimum: one minute. The smaller the pieces of the product, the faster they cook.

Squids are mollusks, sea creatures that are so loved by the Russian people for their unobtrusive and delicate taste. Various snacks are prepared from them, but most often they are used to prepare boiled salads. How to cook squid so that it is soft, and how much - many people ask this for a reason. If you overcook this product, it loses its tenderness and becomes elastic and hard, like rubber. To avoid such problems and not be considered an incompetent housewife in front of your guests, we suggest you learn all the secrets of cleaning and boiling squid.

How to clean squid?

If you are planning to prepare some kind of holiday salad with the addition of seafood, then after defrosting the squid carcasses naturally, you need to clean them. On top of these mollusks there is a thin film that must be removed. You also need to clean the inside of the squid. How to do this correctly?

The easiest way is to use a temperature difference so that the film peels off on its own. Place the carcasses in a saucepan and boil water in a kettle. Place a bowl of very cold water nearby. Pour boiling water over the squids and immediately transfer them into ice water with a slotted spoon. When you pull the clams onto a cutting board, you will see that the thin membrane has peeled off. All that remains to be done is to pry it with your fingers and pull it off the entire surface of the carcass. Inside the squid there is a thin, hard plate that needs to be removed. Feel it with your fingers and gently pull it out. That's it, the product can be cooked.

Rubber squids are a relic of the past

Although squid is now not uncommon and is sold in almost every store, it has not become as popular as, for example, in Japan. It's all about the existing stereotype - as many housewives say, this product is rubber. The misconception about these shellfish was due to the fact that in Soviet times our grandmothers boiled them for 7-10 minutes. They passed this technology on to their daughters. However, squid contains a lot of protein, which, like egg protein, becomes hard when cooked for a long time. The Japanese, who definitely know a lot about seafood, do not boil these shellfish at all. For them this is a normal and familiar phenomenon. So should you cook squid? If so, how?

How and how long to cook squid so that their carcasses are soft?

The secret to preparing this delicacy is simple - the less you cook it, the more tender the meat. How do the Japanese prepare shellfish? At most they scald the carcasses with boiling water, nothing more. They add almost fresh shellfish meat to salads or marinate and eat, and they do this often. Is this why they are distinguished by good health, longevity and a sharp mind?

Some housewives are afraid to exactly follow the example of the Japanese, so they still boil the seafood product. This can be done in different ways.

1. Cleaned carcasses are immersed in boiling salted water for literally 30-40 seconds.
2. After cleaning, pour freshly boiled water over the shellfish and cover with a lid. Leave them to soak in hot water for 3-4 minutes.
3. Using a sieve, lower the carcasses into salted boiling water for 5 seconds, then remove them, and when the water reaches a boil again, lower them for another 5 seconds.
4. Immerse the shellfish in boiling water and immediately turn off the fire. After 3 minutes, remove the squid from the pan.

As you can see, the word “cook” is not entirely appropriate in the heat treatment of this product. Rather, the shellfish are doused with boiling water or infused in it for a short time, but not boiled. What happens if you cook squid for more than 2 minutes? They gradually lose their taste, become hard, and difficult to chew. Dishes with such shellfish are unlikely to appeal to seafood lovers. The longer you cook squid, the coarser the protein fibers become. In addition, with prolonged heat treatment, this delicacy loses its beneficial properties.

What spices to add to water when cooking?

Some housewives and seafood connoisseurs do not add spices at all when cooking squid. The maximum is salt. Just taste the water by adding salt to it. If you like the level of salinity, send the carcasses there. Some people like their seafood to be seasoned with spices. They add peppercorns, bay leaves and lemon juice to boiling water. You can add a little dill, cloves or parsley for scent.

What are the benefits of squid??

The meat of these sea creatures is not only tasty. It belongs to dietary products, as it is easily digestible and promotes the secretion of gastric secretions. It contains a lot of protein and absolutely no fat. Regular consumption of the meat of these shellfish will help replenish the iodine supply in the body. In addition, it contains a lot of potassium, phosphorus and magnesium. Squids are loved for their delicate taste, which is a bit reminiscent of lobster. The latter are not available to a wide range of consumers, but almost everyone can afford squid.

Conclusion

Now do you understand how to properly cook squid so that it is soft? It's simple - you don't need to cook them at all. Maximum - heat treatment for 10-30 seconds. Don't worry about eating raw shellfish meat. Boiling water quickly penetrates the protein and coagulates it. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures will turn your product into “rubber” and deprive it of its beneficial properties.