Cafe St Honore

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NEIL'S RECIPES: EAST COAST SQUID, CHORIZO AND POTATO

“This dish sells out every time we put it on the menu at Cafe. Buy local, fresh squid from a good fishmonger; frozen is not the same.”

Cooking time: 5 minutes; prep time: 20 minutes

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

1 medium-sized squid, cleaned and prepped by a fishmonger

1/3 of a good chorizo, peeled and thinly sliced. I use Peelham Farm Organic, but East Coast Cured or Hammond Charcuterie are excellent too

2 medium-sized potatoes like Pink Fir apple or similar, par-boiled and diced

A handful of salad leaves of your liking

1 tablespoon cold-pressed rapeseed oil

/2 tomato, de-seeded and diced

Juice of half a lemon

Good salt and pepper

A small handful of curly parsley, finely chopped

METHOD

This is quite a quick-cook dish so ensure you have all your ingredients prepped and to hand.

Take the squid and cut along its length, then lay it flat and score the inside in a criss-cross pattern. Pat dry and season with salt and pepper.

Next, heat half the oil in a pan, swirl it around and when it’s hot, carefully add the squid cut-side down. Add the tentacles too. Cook for about 1 minute on this side pressing down with a spoon. Add the diced potatoes to the gaps in the pan and keep moving them around as they cook and colour or they may burn on such a high heat. Then turn the squid over and it will start to curl up into a spiral. Continue to cook for another minute or so. Season again and add squirt of lemon juice. Add the diced tomato dice and chopped parsley.

Turn off the heat and remove the squid. Cut the squid into small spirals then add it back to the pan and add a handful of salad leaves. Give it a good mix.

To serve, spoon the salad into at the centre of a plate and give another squirt of lemon and drizzle over the remaining oil. Eat at once.