Friday, January 05, 2007
posted by pablopabla at 2:02 pm

Stir-Fried Sotong with Sarawak Laksa Paste

Care for squids? Squids, also known as sotong in Malay (and Hokkien), is great when cooked in sambal. It cooks pretty fast and usually, it is best not too cook it for too long or it might become chewy. To prepare it for cooking, push the "head" apart and reach into the "body / cavity" for a plastic-like strip. Remove that and wash the sotong clean.

Squid aka Sotong

I had been wanting to get rid of the leftover Sarawak Laksa paste which was lying in the fridge and last Saturday's trip to the wet market gave me an opportunity when the fishmonger had some really fresh sotongs on sale. So, I bought 300 grammes worth of sotong and was drooling in anticipation of what I was going to cook that night. I also bought some lime to give this dish a slight tangy and refreshing taste to it. Otherwise, it would be too much of a plain sambal taste.

This is my recipe for Stir-Fried Sotong with Sarawak Laksa Paste


Ingredients
  • 300 grammes squid / sotong (washed and cleaned and cut across into 2 cm tubes)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons sarawak laksa paste
  • 6 lime (squeezed for the juice)
  • 3 to 5 pieces kaffir lime leaves
  • 2 medium sized onions (chopped roughly)
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil (preferably palm oil)
  • 30 to 50 ml warm water

Seasoning
  • 2 teaspoon sugar
  • Salt to taste

Method

Heat oil in wok and saute onions till fragrant. Add sarawak laksa paste and stir well for 30 seconds. Add sotong, lime juice, kaffir lime leaves, water and seasoning whilst stirring. Sotong is cooked when it curls up.

Serve with plain white rice or coconut rice.


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3 Comments:


At 2:53 pm, Anonymous Anonymous

I watched on Food Network TV, Italian cook Molto Mario said that the best way to cook squid is either two minutes (very fast) or two hours (very slow).

I did not know this "rule" and my first attempt at cooking squid resulted in rubber squids. Doh!

 

At 3:46 am, Blogger tigerfish

Have not handled fresh squids before. I'm learning!

Only attempted frozen squid rings(calamari)...and like your fresh sotong, they were bathed in chilli.

 

At 10:30 am, Blogger pablopabla

simcooks : What Molto said is correct. It's not easy to cook squids. U really need a fiery cooker so that you can cook in minimum time. The squid curls up so fast that you don't have much time to dilly dally around :P

tigerfish : If you have a good recipe for batter, they taste good deep fried :)