Squid Tomato Pasta

Elena Butuc

Pasta with tomato sauce became soul food for us after I discovered the Italian Marinara Sauce, the classic one or the recipe adapted by me. If you want it a bit more hearty, like the seafood pasta, but you don't have a great variety of mollusks nor the budget, I propose the most handy, cheap, filling and very tasty option. That is, use squid. I usually keep 1-2 bags of squid rings in the freezer and, mostly, use them combined with pasta. You're probably wondering why I use frozen squid - I've tried fresh too, but I probably don't have the necessary skills yet to cook it in such a way that it's not hard and rubbery - I'd be grateful if you had little secrets for boiling the raw squid.

I discovered that frozen squid rings are already pre-cooked, so they are easy to prepare, they have a good texture and are always handy in the freezer.

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Ingredients

Metric US

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Frozen squid rings

500 g

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Tomatoes sauce

500 g

I recommend Marinara sauce, homemade or store bought - worst case, use mashed tomatoes

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White onion

1 piece

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Garlic cloves

4 pieces

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Olive oil

50 ml

you can also add 10g of butter

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Pasta

500 g

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Parmesan

20 g

for serving

Step by step

Here are the squid rings that I normally use in recipes.

I keep in the freezer and thaw a few hours before cooking the dish.

Thaw, then wash well 2-3 times.

Place in a sieve to drain. I check each one and make sure they don't have any hard parts. I recommend not skipping this step, I can't stand feeling hard parts in my food and I'm usually paranoid about this :)

You can leave the rings whole or cut into halves, quarters etc.

When the calamari strips are ready, we can actually start the cooking.

In a frying pan, heat the olive oil (and the butter, optional) and add the finely chopped onion and garlic. Cook for 3-4 minutes, very careful not to brown them too much or burn.