Ingredients: squid, white pepper, cooking wine, egg yolk, potato starch · 30 min cook time · 485kcal · $12.96
Instructions
1. Pull the head out of the squid. Separate the mantle (body) from the head and tentacles by pulling them apart. Discard the head and tentacles for now.
2. Cut open the body lengthwise. Take all the innards out and discard. Clean out as much of the inside as you can. Remove the pen (the clear, stringy tendon).
3. Wash the squid body with fresh water, rinsing out the rest of the inside. Pull out all the stringy tendons. Cut it open. Pull the fin open. It helps the squid steer in the water. Pull all the skin off. Discard the skin, it's too difficult to chew. Peel the whole thing off. Now peel off the outer skin of the body. No, just pull it patiently. Pull the fin too. After removing the fin, we'll rinse again with clean water. With the fin, we'll also remove the outer skin.
4. We'll discard everything past the eyes. Discard the stomach. Cut it right here. We'll cut right above the eyes and discard the top part of the "head". Discard this. These are the eyes. Make sure to discard the eyes. Here are the eyes. Cut them out. Here's an eye. Discard the eye. This one as well. Here's the other eye. What about inside the eye? Just pull the entire eye out. We'll set aside the tentacles and head portion, discarding the eyes and the portion we cut off.
5. Before we cut it, we'll scrape it so it's clean. Here we'll scrape any remaining grit off of the body with a knife. Scrape it clean. Could you scrape it like that to get the skin off? No, you have to peel the skin off. After scraping both sides, my dad will reveal the secret to getting that tender texture in the squid.
6. Now, we'll score a crosshatch pattern. Score the inner side of the squid. Don't score the tough outer side. This is a huge piece of squid, so I'll split it in half first. We'll first cut the body in half lengthwise. Watch how I score it. Angle your knife. Don't cut all the way through. Then at a 45-degree angle, we'll make cuts halfway into the squid, about every 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Slowly, score one line at a time. Rotate it so you can score it in the other direction. Now, rotate 90 degrees and repeat the scoring again, creating a crosshatch pattern. If you score it like this, it won't be difficult to chew when you eat it. We'll score all the way down the length of the body. If you don't score it, it's hard to chew. The muscle fibers and tendons inside are tightly knit. You have to score it. You have to cut those fibers. That's how you fix the texture. It'll be easier to chew, it won't be tough. Do you see yourself? What should we do? Do you want us to hold hands?
7. Once you've scored it, cut it into triangles. I like triangles for deep-frying. It curls up very beautifully. Now we'll cut the squid into triangular pieces, each about an inch wide. Triangles. No need to be too exact with the shape here, as long as they are similar sizes. Set it here. Same with this piece. Now we'll repeat the crosshatch scoring and cutting with the other piece, and also the fin.
8. After that, we'll move on to the tentacles and head portion. Time to work on this part. We don't want to keep these arms and tentacles so long. Cut shorter pieces. Just like that. We'll cut the tentacles into roughly 2-inch long pieces. For these thicker, bigger pieces, I'll just cut them open. Butterfly them open. Split open these thick pieces. You can leave the thin pieces as they are. Don't cut all the way through. Just split it open. See? Now we'll cut out any hard parts here. This is the beak. Discard it. The beak is hard. This is tough. Be careful. Cut it like this. Cut it into the same shapes as the arm pieces. We'll cut this part into strips around the same size as the tentacles. When you eat it, it won't be as tough. Once it's all cut up, we'll rinse it in water, then marinate.
9. Now we'll rinse all the cut squid with some fresh water and let it drain. Drain the water. We've shown you how to prepare the fresh squid, so now let me show you this pre-packaged squid. You can also use frozen precooked squid like this. This is only the body? Yes, these are only pieces from the squid body. No arms or tentacles. They look like this. They've already cut it into pieces. Just thaw, coat in batter, and fry. Set it there, we'll fry these just like the others.
10. Before we marinate these, we'll pat them dry. Use a thicker paper towel. This will help the marinade penetrate better. Pat dry. We'll spread out the squid pieces here. My dad sandwiches them between two paper towels, then rolls it tightly and squeezes it, so that the paper towels can absorb as much moisture as possible. Then we'll unroll and put the squid into a bowl to marinate. Once they're dry, put them into a bowl.
11. The seasoning is very simple. 1/4 tsp of white pepper. We'll also add 1 tbsp of cooking wine. When those are in, we'll add an egg yolk. I'm not using the egg white today. For one, the color will be really nice once it's fried, and also, it'll make a better frying batter. We'll carefully crack open an egg and add just the egg yolk to the squid. Mix well before adding the starch. Now mix the marinade into the squid. My dad likes to use his hand to get a better mix. 1 tbsp of potato starch. Mix well. Now mix the potato starch in with the marinated squid. Potato starch makes for a slightly better batter than cornstarch. It's not a big deal. If you don't have potato starch, cornstarch works great, too. Do you not add water? No, because the squid contains a lot of water. The egg yolk and cooking wine are enough. And don't add salt! If you add salt now, it'll make the squid release a lot of water. Then it won't fry well. All right, this is good.
12. Once the squid is prepared, we'll cut up the accompanying ingredients. They're very simple. Red bell pepper. We'll start with just a 1/4 of a red bell pepper. Cut into thin strips. We'll cut the pepper into 1/4-inch thick strips. A spicy chili pepper. Two peppers are enough, they're very spicy. Then we'll dice two small red chilies. Did you grow those? Yes, they're right outside. Now, we'll peel three cloves of garlic. Trim the end. Then we'll smash and mince the garlic, chopping at different angles to get a finer mince. Next, we'll need three pieces of green onion. We'll dice up just the white parts of the green onion. Then we're ready to make the crucial frying batter to coat the squid.
13. For deep-fried squid, lots of people use a dry dredge. I like to use a wet batter. Wet batters create a nice crust. It also coats the squid entirely so it stays juicy inside. If you fry with a dry dredge, the squid will lose its juices. I'm using 4 tbsp of all-purpose flour. 2 tbsp of potato starch. You can use either potato starch or cornstarch. If you don't have potato starch, use cornstarch. Now mix together the dry ingredients before adding water. Now, we'll mix in 4 tbsp of water. If 4 tbsp isn't enough water, we'll gradually add more. Adjust slowly. We can see that 4 tbsp isn't enough water. Let's add 2 more tbsp. Because squid naturally contains so much water, I'm going to make a thicker batter for it. Then, add 1 tsp of baking powder. Baking powder makes the crust fluffy. It'll fry to be a lighter, airier crust. Just a bit of salt, 1/2 tsp. We're stir-frying it with salt & pepper later. Don't let the batter get too thin. It can't be too thin. For a more beautiful crust, add 1 tsp of oil. Finally, we'll add some oil and mix it in. This will make a beautiful crust. After mixing in the oil, the batter is done and we can prepare the simple yet tasty salt and pepper seasoning.
14. I'm using garlic salt. 2 tsp of garlic salt. 1/4 tsp of white pepper. and mix that up. If it's not seasoned enough when you're eating it, you can sprinkle more garlic salt on top. After you've deep-fried it, just sprinkle more on. If you taste it and it's too bland, add more salt. In the context of Chinese cooking, salt and pepper or ziu jim refers to white pepper, and often, other spicy seasonings. Even though they come from the same fruit, white pepper's flavor profile is more subtle and woody, while black pepper's flavor profile is more floral and forward. As famous as Chinese salt & pepper dishes are, there is no single definitive Chinese salt & pepper "formula", as each recipe is shaped by preference and ingredient availability. While you can cook many proteins in this style, as we've shown on this channel, my dad will show you how to master fresh squid or jau jyu for that restaurant-style crispy yet tender texture.
15. Our ingredients are all ready, so let's start deep-frying. Heat on. High heat. Once the wok is hot, add oil. You can reuse the frying oil later. This is corn oil. If you use more oil, you can fry larger batches. If you use less oil, you may need more batches. It doesn't matter. We'll use this spider strainer to quickly grab the fried squid. You don't need to pick up each individual piece with chopsticks. If you're slow, some pieces will burn while you're slowly getting the others out. You can grab everything at once with this spider strainer. Keep the oil at 350° F for the first fry. It's at 325° F now. If you don't have a thermometer, just dip a wooden chopstick in. The oil is ready when you see small bubbles come out from the tip. 350° F. Lower the heat, don't keep it on high. We'll mix the batter into the squid right before frying. When the oil is close to 350° F, we'll mix the batter into the squid. Mix well. You can't mix it in advance? No, you can't. Mix it in once your oil is hot. The batter and flour won't settle to the bottom then. We want the batter to stick to the squid. Don't throw the squid into the oil from way up high. Slowly put them in. Stay close to the oil when you set the squid in. My dad uses his hand to put in each piece of squid, spreading them around the wok so they don't stick. We'll fry the squid in two batches. It curls up as it cooks, like a horn. After frying for 2.5 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, we can take out the first batch. All right. The first fry is done. Take them out. If you have a spider strainer, you can get everything out at once. You don't have to individually pick each piece up. Is it cooked through? Yes, squid cooks through very quickly. We'll let the oil heat back up for the next batch. Now, we'll fry the second batch the same way. That's it for the first fry. We'll remove and set aside the second batch and turn up the heat for the second fry. Now, we'll start the second fry. We want a higher oil temperature. How do you get this to stay crispy? It won't stay crispy forever. Fried squid contains a lot of juices inside. If you don't eat it, that juice travels out to the crust. Once the crust absorbs that, it won't be crispy. That goes for any fried food. Eat quickly, while it's crispy. These fried foods are always served as appetizers. They come out first so you eat it first. Okay, 380° F. We'll do the second frying stage. It's very quick. When the oil is at 380°F, we'll put in the first batch for a second fry. This will be fast, or only about 30-40 seconds. All right. We'll remove the first batch and repeat with the second batch. Once that's done, my dad will show you how to fry the precooked squid. Now, we'll fry these. They're frozen, so we have to squeeze the water out. We'll squeeze out as much water as we can for these defrosted squid, then put it into the batter. Mix the batter in. Then mix it into the batter, making sure to coat them well. Then we'll fry them at 350°F like with the fresh squid but only for 30-40 seconds to cook the batter. Okay. Heat up the oil for the second fry. All right. Like before, we'll do a second fry at 380°F but we'll only fry for 20-30 seconds. It's done. Wow. Then we can take out the squid and set it aside.
16. Is there any symbolism? Yes, "stir-frying squid" is unlucky. "Stir-frying squid" means getting laid off, or fired. For Cantonese people, "stir-fried squid" has this unlucky meaning. It means, "Hey, bad news, your boss is firing you, you're laid off." Put this away. We'll stir-fry the other ingredients. Here my dad just uses another clean wok for stir-frying, but if you don't have an extra one, you can just pour out the hot oil, clean, and reuse the same wok for this step. Heat on. First, heat the wok on high. You don't need much oil for this. Then, add a tbsp of the oil we just used. Lower the heat. Stir-fry your garlic on low heat, or it'll burn. If you're on high heat, the garlic will burn. Add the fresh chili peppers. After the chilies, we'll add the green onion whites and the red bell peppers in quick succession. Add the red bell peppers too. We'll stir-fry the aromatics together just a bit, then we can add in the fried squid. Now, we'll add the fried squid. Now, we'll stir-fry the squid together with the aromatics for about 40-50 seconds. Add the frozen pieces too. A splash of wine for the aroma. Just a bit. Then we'll swirl in 1 tsp of cooking wine around the edges and mix. What does the wine do? It makes the dish more aromatic. All right. We'll add the salt & pepper mix. We'll add in the seasoning a bit at a time, while stirring and flipping from the bottom. Are you adding all of it? It depends, don't add all of it if it's salty enough. Heat off. See if it's seasoned enough. Oh my god! Now I get to be the lucky taste tester. Is it salty enough? So good! So good! Once the flavors are approved, we can plate and serve. Hello, friends! Our Salt & Pepper Squid is complete! I hope you all enjoyed it! Hong Dong, Mui Mui, come and eat squid! Eat more. Not for him. No more for Randy. He's done. He ate too much. I've had too much. You want to save it for tomorrow? No, no.