Puff salad with squid - a very healthy, tasty, effective dish. This salad is a real decoration of the festive table: neatly laid layers delight the eye, stimulate appetite. The main component of the dish is squid.
How to clean squid
A squid puff salad can be prepared with both peeled and uncleaned squids.
With peeled mollusks, the preliminary preparation process is much faster and easier. Unpeeled squids require more time at the preparation stage, but their meat is more tender, juicy and tasty.
Frozen mollusks should be thawed, boiled with boiling water, kept in hot water for 1 minute, and then filled with cold water. Thanks to this "contrasting soul" the skin is removed easily.
The second way to clean the skins is more extreme, but very effective. It consists in the fact that 1-2 frozen carcasses are poured with boiling water. After 5-10 seconds, when the skin begins to peel off and curl up in separate rags, the carcass is doused with cold water (it is convenient to do this in the sink under the tap) and the skin is removed with your fingers.
After removing the skin from the squid, all the insides are pulled out, including the chord - a transparent plate that is stretched over the entire body. This is done quickly and easily.
For the perfect effect, you can turn the mollusk inside out like a sock, and carefully remove the inner transparent film enveloping the entire body.
How to boil squids
Puff salad with calamari begin to cook, usually with boiling clams. And this is the most important stage when working with any dish, which includes squid. You always need to remember the immutable rule: the longer it is cooked, the more tough, tasteless and useless this seafood becomes. If the cooking process lasts longer than 3 minutes, the most tender meat becomes elastic, similar to rubber, the nutritional value disappears, and an unusual taste is lost. For uniform heating of the mollusk, it is most convenient to use wide dishes.
Carcasses must be thawed at room temperature. Boil water, salt, add bay leaf, peppercorns. Put the carcasses in a container of boiling water, after 10 seconds, remove the dishes from the fire, cover. After the seafood has been steamed for 8-10 minutes (preferably under the lid), you can immediately start cooking the salad.
If there is no time or desire to tinker with defrosting, the cooking process can be simplified. In this case, the frozen carcasses are carefully dipped in boiling water and boiled for 1 minute. Then they are removed from the heat, kept in hot water for 3-4 minutes.
Squid + Shrimp
A squid and shrimp puff salad may include various additional ingredients. One of the most common is the "Mediterranean": with shrimp, squid, eggs.
Ingredients:
• 0.3 kg squid;
• 0.3 kg of shrimp;
• 3 eggs;
• dill (greens);
• olives or olives - optional;
• mayonnaise;
• salt pepper.
Boil eggs, cool, peel, grate or cut into cubes.
Cut boiled and chilled squids with a wide straw, and then with squares. Cook shrimp in slightly salted water, cut small into 2 parts, large into 3-4, leaving a few pieces to decorate the salad.
Mix mayonnaise with finely chopped dill. Put all layers, greasing each of them with mayonnaise, in a salad bowl in layers. Garnish with shrimp and olives (olives).
On the basis of the "Mediterranean" you can make a salad "Neptune".
In this case, diced crab sticks and red caviar, which is stacked in a top layer, are added to all the previous ingredients.
Squid + mushrooms
Puff salad with calamari and mushrooms is prepared according to the following recipe, designed for 4 servings:
• 0.5 kg squid;
• 0.2 kg of mushrooms (champignons, white, boletus, oyster mushrooms);
• 0.2 kg of cheese;
• 50 g of nuts (walnuts);
• mayonnaise and sour cream for sauce - 1 glass each;
• spices.
Boiled and cooled squids are cut into thin strips.
Rinse the mushrooms, cut into thin plates, fry for 15-20 minutes until a golden crust appears. Salt lightly during frying.
Cheese is best used in soft varieties that give the dish extra tenderness. Grate the cheese on a coarse grater.
Grind walnuts with a blender, grater or mortar.
To prepare the sauce, mix sour cream and mayonnaise, spices (you can add garlic).
If you want to make the dish low-calorie, you can replace the nuts with sesame seeds, and the sauce with low-fat unsweetened yogurt.
Put all the ingredients in a common salad bowl or in portions in layers: mushrooms, squid, cheese. Soak each layer with sauce. Garnish the dish with grated nuts.
How to make puff salad
Whatever ingredients are included in the recipe for squid salad, the layered design looks like a work of art on the festive table.
The main feature of puff salad is that each ingredient is laid out in neat tiers that create a spectacular picture. This requires more time than in the mixed version, but the result will surely please both the cook and guests.
Several points should be taken into account that turn a regular puff salad into a culinary masterpiece:
• The color scheme is an important component of the appearance of the salad. The more contrast the color of the ingredients that make up the layers, the more elegant the dish looks.
• The salad turns out to be very satisfying and tasty if each layer is soaked in sauce in accordance with the recipe.
• Salad gives juiciness not so much the amount of sauce used for impregnation, but how much time the lettuce is aged before serving. If you leave the salad for 2-3 hours in the refrigerator, the taste will become rich and harmonious, and the consistency is more tender and juicy.
Puff salad with squid most effectively and festively looks in a transparent dish.
You can serve the dish in portions, laying on a flat plate with the help of a special form (ring), the role of which any container without a bottom can play. If you don’t have such dishes at hand, you can use an ordinary plastic bottle, cutting it to the desired height.
To decorate the salad, you can use red and black caviar, shrimp, mussels.