Sunday: Tentacle tagine

Squid and chickpea tagine, served over couscous.

We modified this recipe from Paul Johnson's Fish Forever.  This was our first experience cooking squid at home, and we have deemed it a success.  Squid is tricky - it has a tendency to get too tough and chewy, because the proteins in the tissue can form tight bonds when it's cooked.  To compensate, Paul Johnson says you must either cook it extremely briefly over high heat (so that the tissue doesn't have enough time to toughen up) or for a very long time over low heat (so that it tightens, but then becomes soft again over a long period of cooking). 

This tagine, a North African stew, employs the second method, allowing the chopped squid to simmer until it is tender and has picked up the flavor of the spices in the tomato broth.

Sunday dinner: Sea Scallops

Pan-seared scallops on watercress served with couscous.

Another D4SA first, brought to you by the good folks at Pura Vida Fisheries: sea scallops. As we'd been stopping by the fish stand at the market recently, we'd been noticing a bin of "big" looking scallops as well as a bin of "small" looking scallops. When we finally investigated, it turned out that these were actually two different creatures. The sea scallops are rather larger, and the smaller ones were "bay scallops," around here mostly fished in the Peconic Bay on Long Island. They apparently have a slightly sweeter flavor.

We were intrigued, so we decided to try bay scallops first - but unfortunately, we seem to have missed the window of opportunity. Around here, their season is about November to early April. Something good to keep in mind for next winter...

Sea scallops, on the other hand, are pretty plentiful and are available year-round. So we quickly pan-seared these guys, doused them in a lemon-thyme dressing, and served them over some fresh spring watercress.

Thursday: Raddichio pasta

Spaghetti with octopus and slivered Treviso radicchio.

We recently made a pasta with mustard greens and goat cheese; this one is rather similar, although radicchio doesn't have quite the same bite as mustard greens do.

Tuesday: Octopus fried rice

Fried rice with octopus, plus roasted acorn squash (not pictured).

Somehow, over five years of cooking, we've never until now attempted fried rice. That's rather silly, considering that it is not too difficult: just saute garlic, ginger and scallion in oil, then add cooked rice and stir for a few minutes; next, pour two lightly beaten eggs into the center of the rice and continue stirring until the egg scrambles throughout. We added tinned octopus to this dish, as well as soy sauce to flavor.

Tuesday: Spaghetti Nero di Seppia

Spaghetti nero di seppia (squid ink pasta) in a seafood cream sauce with baked treviso radicchio.

We've never made a cream sauce for pasta before, and ended up concluding the texture of this one was a bit too thin (should have started with a roux) but it was still delicious. The "seafood" was tinned octopus and cuttlefish.

Squid ink pasta is frequently made with the cuttlefish ink added directly to the sauce, but this spaghetti had been infused with the ink (thus the black color). You can also buy the actual cuttlefish ink in small packets....we have one in the pantry waiting for us to decide what to do with it.