Writing With My Mouth Full

recent posts

    • Bresaola Omelet Salad

      On the flight back from Vancouver, I watched one of Jamie Oliver’s farm episodes. The guy is living the life: hanging out in the English countryside, gardening, taking care of his own chickens and cooking simple and healthy meals in his adorable kitchen. He made a few dishes during this one episode, but this bresaola omelet salad struck me as something refreshing, but at the same time substantial for a sunny weekend. The key is to cook the egg like a crepe and rolling it to slice it like strands of pasta. Thinly-sliced bresaola, or air-dried beef (think prosciutto, but from a cow), gave this dish the saltiness it needed while the fennel added some crunch and kick to the mixed greens.

      I woke up famished on Sunday morning after a much-needed sleep. While drinking my iced coffee, I quickly assembled this before heading out to enjoy the rest of my long weekend. Note: Whole Foods doesn’t slice bresaola, or any other cured meats, paper-thin. I bet they can’t trust those young goons behind the counter with sharp objects. If you’re in New York City, Di Palo is the way to go.

      Ingredients:
      4 eggs
      8 bresaola, sliced thinly like prosciutto
      a handful of mixed greens
      half a bulb of fennel, thinly sliced
      a squirt of lemon juice
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs with some salt and pepper. Heat a nonstick skillet with some oil. Pour half of the egg mixture and cook over medium-low heat. Make sure the bottom of the pan is covered with the egg by lifting and swaying the pan and letting the egg mixture spread thinly.
      2. Once the egg is set, lift one edge of the egg crepe using a spatula and gently roll it to meet the other edge. Remove to a plate.
      3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for the rest of the egg mixture.
      4. When cool enough to handle, slice the rolled up egg crepes to make strands. In a large salad bowl, toss the rest of the ingredients together. Top with strands of egg crepe and season with salt and pepper.

      Related post/s:
      I like egg with my vegetables
      Sal from Di Palo will sell you a quarter pound of paper-thin bresaola for less than $5

    • Salmon Tamarind Glaze with Corn Salad

      Here’s one thing I rarely cook or eat: salmon. Now, salmon is a perfectly good fish but I think I’ve been traumatized with the way they prepare it at weddings. Salmon is like shrimp: a few minutes too much and it’s overcooked, dry and devoid of taste. But I haven’t given up on it. I know that just like any other fish, it will taste good if cooked properly. Besides, after devouring a lot of smoked salmon while I was in Vancouver, I knew I had to play with it some more in the kitchen.

      It’s July 4th and corn should be on everyone’s grills this weekend, but they’re more expensive this year because of flooding in the Midwest and drought in the South. According to the Des Moines Register, the corn will come eventually, but maybe not for a few weeks. For now, we all have to eat corn from Georgia and Florida.

      This recipe requires a tamarind concentrate you can buy from your Asian market. If you have access to fresh and ripe tamarinds, all you have to do is soak them in hot water to soften them. Put the pulp through a sieve to extract the juice, discarding skins, seeds and fibers.

      Ingredients:
      4 salmon fillets, patted dry with a paper towel
      4 ears of fresh corn, skin and silk peeled off
      a handful of cilantro, finely chopped
      half a red bell pepper, finely chopped
      1 small red onion, finely chopped
      1/2 cup of tamarind concentrate
      2 tbsps brown sugar
      2 tbsps soy sauce
      2 tbsps fish sauce
      a splash of sherry vinegar
      1 red chile, seeded, chopped
      juice of half a lime
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. Make the tamarind glaze. In a small bowl, mix the tamarind concentrate (or extracted juice if using real tamarinds) with the brown sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, chile, and lime juice, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
      2. Rub the flesh side of the salmon with salt and pepper the brush the glaze over them. Store in the fridge until ready to cook.
      3. In the meantime, assemble the corn salad. Using a sharp knife, cut off the corn kernels from the cob and into a salad bowl. Toss with the cilantro, red bell pepper, red onion, lime juice and sherry vinegar. Feel free to adjust the liquids according to your taste.
      4. Cook the fish. Heat a nonstick skillet with some oil over medium-high fire. When oil is smoking just a tad bit, gently place the salmon skin side down. Let them cook for 5 minutes without moving them to get a crispy skin. Using a heat-resistant spatula, turn the salmon over and cook the flesh side with tamarind glaze for an extra 3 minutes. Brush the skin side with leftover glaze. Carefully remove to a plate and serve with some of the corn salad.

      Related post/s:
      Serve smoked salmon with watercress
      Trout would be awesome with this recipe, too
      I got my tamarind concentrate from Asia Food Market

    • Watermelon Rind Pickles

      Watermelon rind pickles are apparently a Southern thing. But I first had them at Fatty Crab, a Zak Pelaccio restaurant here in New York City devoted to Southeast Asian cuisine. I’ve been wanting to recreate their dish served with crispy pork belly at home, and the opportunity finally came when Cameron and I started planning our first Supper with Strangers.

      Supper with Strangers is an urban supper club devoted to bringing together New York City’s food-loving populace. We think it’s a chance to celebrate the season’s flavors, meet others with equally good taste, and have them enjoy a fantastic, home-cooked meal with great people. We both love to cook and entertain, so we figured, why not create our very own supper club and meet new people in the process?

      While we planned the first menu in a span of almost three weeks—that’s why the updates on this blog have been intermittent—we wanted to feature cool and refreshing dishes using summer ingredients. One watermelon appetizer idea brought us to featuring watermelon as the main ingredient for all our dishes, a la Iron Chef. After several tastings, we came up with a winning menu and consulted with Pour Wines for wine and beer pairings.

      Welcome cocktail: Watermelon-Shiso Mojito

      Amuse-bouche: Kebab of Watermelon, Bresaola, and Caper Berry
      Vegetarian alternate: sheep’s milk cheese instead of bresaola

      Appetizer: Chilled Thai-Spiced Watermelon Soup with Crab
      Vegetarian alternate: sans the crab
      Paired with: Francois Pinon Vouvray Tendre Cuvee Tradition, 2006, Loire Valley

      Main dish: Fried Pork Belly with Pickled Watermelon Rinds
      Vegetarian alternate: Roasted Golden Beet with Shiitake Mushrooms and Pickled Watermelon Rinds
      Paired with: Ommegang Hennepin Farmhouse Saison Ale, Cooperstown, NY

      Salad: Watermelon and Green Papaya Salad with Tequila Vinaigrette
      Paired with: Salneval Albariño, 2007, Galicia, Spain

      Dessert: Watermelon Cream Sorbet with Pirouettes
      Served with coffee or mint tea

      Ingredients:
      watermelon rind, 4 quarts of 1-inch chunks (see directions for preparation)
      2 cups white vinegar
      4 cups white sugar
      1 tbsp whole cloves
      5 cinnamon sticks
      2 star anise
      1 tbsp juniper berries
      a pinch of mustard seeds
      2 cups of water

      1. Slice open the watermelon your usual way. Separate the red flesh from the rind. (Eat the red flesh later!) Peel the green skin off the rinds. Chop rinds in smaller chunks.
      2. Make the brine. In a large pot, combine all the ingredients except rind and cook over medium fire until sugar dissolves. Remove pot from heat and let completely cool.
      3. Transfer watermelon rind chunks in a pickling jar. Pour in brine until all of the rinds are submerged. I put a small and heavy tea cup to weigh the rinds down inside the pickling jar. Store in the refrigerator for at least 2 weeks.

      Related post/s:
      Join us at Supper with Strangers once a month
      Inaugural Supper with Strangers photos on Flickr
      Crispy pork belly recipe

    • Rhubarb Panna Cotta with Strawberries

      Remember the rhubarb sauce I made a couple of weeks ago? I’ve stir-fried it with fish and braised pork belly with it and I still have half a tub leftover. I searched through my recipe archives and thought, well, I can make panna cotta with it, yeah? It’s a simple sauce with a subtle flavor so it should work. It did and it made for a nice summer dessert completed with delicately sliced sweet strawberries.

      Ingredients:
      1/2 cup whole milk
      1 1/2 tsps unflavored powdered gelatin
      1 1/2 cups heavy cream
      1/4 cup of rhubarb sauce
      1/4 cup sugar
      a pinch salt
      strawberries for garnish, sliced

      1. Place the milk in a heavy, small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin over and let stand for 5 minutes to soften the gelatin. Stir over medium heat just until the gelatin dissolves, but the milk does not boil, about 2 minutes.
      2. Add the cream, rhubarb sauce, sugar, and salt. Stir over low heat, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 more minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
      3. Pour the cream mixture into 2 martini glasses, dividing equally. Cover with Saran wrap and refrigerate. Chill until set, at least 6 hours and up to 2 days.
      4. When ready to serve, top with strawberries.

      Related post/s:
      Make your own rhubarb sauce
      Rhubarb crisp is one of my favorite desserts

    • Fish Braised in Sundried Tomatoes

      Anna sent me a pack of sundried tomatoes from her recent trip to Argentina so I went searching for recipes using them as the main ingredient. There were a lot of proven recipes for spreads and pastes, so I stuck with one of them and just used it on fish I bought for my weekly omakase bento at work. The heavy cream was rather random but I needed to dilute the tomatoes’ saltiness without losing the consistency of the braising sauce. It was also the only thing I had handy in the fridge. Toss with some basil chiffonade and serve with an unsalted orzo and you should be all set.

      Any white fish will do here. Cod will be excellent, but a lower-priced Swai is good, too. And you know what? I spread the sundried tomato paste on a portobello mushroom and grilled that for the vegetarian in the group, and he liked it, too.

      Ingredients:
      4 fish fillets
      a splash of heavy cream
      a handful of sundried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for at least 15 minutes, patted dry with a paper towel
      a handful of basil leaves
      3 cloves of garlic
      a splash of sherry vinegar
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. Make sundried tomato paste. Using a food processor, pulse tomatoes, garlic and basil, adding some oil until you reach the consistency of paste. Season with pepper. Transfer to a container.
      2. Lightly salt the fish. (The tomatoes will add more saltiness.) Sprinkle some pepper, too. Using a spatula, spread some of the paste onto the fish.
      3. Heat some oil in a large skillet. Add the tomato-covered fish and cook for about 3 minutes per side, uncovered. Lower the heat and add the heavy cream. Gently scrape off the bits and pieces under the fish, cover and steam for an extra 5 minutes. Uncover and transfer the fish to a plate.

      Related post/s:
      Fish using fresh tomatoes
      Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #12

    • Aquavit

      65 East 55th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
      212/593.0287
      about $90 each for six, with several drinks, with tacked on 20% tip
      ♥ ♥

      I dragged five others to the Aquavit Cafe earlier this week to take advantage of Herring Week, the annual celebration for all things herring. I had such a fun time eating with new people who were down to eat herring prepared in different ways. This was my first time back at the restaurant after they moved a couple of years ago. The cafe is bigger and looks more like a hotel lobby restaurant. I didn’t get past the bar and to the main dining room, but I would bet that the waterfall is now gone. Chef Marcus Samuelsson now has a sushi restaurant and his name is mentioned in more food events around the city, but the Scandinavian spirit that he introduced to diners like me is still well and alive.

      The herring buffet was situated along the entrance to the cafe. The two times we made the trip to serve ourselves, we had to watch out for the waiters and the busboys. But oh, we wanted herring and did we get some! There was the usual pickled herring, vinegar-y and lip-smackin’ good. There was smoked herring, flaky and perfect with a Whale’s Tale Ale. There were interesting and delicious combinations like herring with onions and carrots, herring in a light green sauce that we thought was made out of dill and herring with caviar. Then there were the odd ones that surprisingly worked: herring egg salad and herring paté. And ones that didn’t: herring with sweet tomato sauce and herring with curry.

      The buffet wasn’t all herring, which was quite a relief after we’ve filled our empty stomachs with the almighty fish. I had smoked salmon topped with pickled cucumbers, roasted potatoes slathered with gravy, Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and anchovy pizette with a cherry tomato. I skipped the bread and the greens to make more room for a second trip to the buffet. We forced ourselves to eat the included desserts, not because we wanted anything sweet but because we wanted something to cleanse our palates. The Arctic Circle was a goat cheese cylinder filled with passion fruit, topped with a tarty and refreshing sorbet of black currants. (I love me some tarty desserts!) Two in the group opted for the chocolate with several other ingredients I barely recall now.

      It was a good time until we got our bill. Even though we chose to do the buffet, a 20% gratuity was automatically included because we were a group of six. We ended up paying almost $100 each including our drinks. Even though the bill was up to par with my usual night out with friends, I thought this was quite pricey considering we had to get up and serve ourselves.

      I love herring, but maybe I’ll stick with the Formica tables in Grand Central Oyster Bar during Herring Week next year.

      Related post/s:
      My first vist to Aquavit
      Make your own Ikea dish: Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce

    • OctoDog’s Frankfurter Converter

      When Jen first showed me the link to OctoDog, I squealed. I didn’t care if the toy was $16.95 apiece; I wanted one. A few weeks later, I squealed again when a box came in the mail and my red OctoDog was in it. I immediately wanted to try it, but to be honest, I don’t eat too many hot dogs at home. Off I went to the neighborhood grocery store where I spent several minutes in front of the frankfurter aisle trying to decipher which was long and big enough to fit in my OctoDog. From a quick glance, the OctoDog seems to be pretty thick. I knew that it wasn’t going to work for the skinny Sabrett hot dogs. I had to pick from what New York street vendors call sausages.

      Back at home, I followed the easy instructions that came with the OctoDog. I took the OctoDog apart including the “eyes”. I then inserted the hot dog inside the “tentacles” and replaced the eyes which essentially held the hot dog in place. I pushed the hot dog in using the OctoDog base–this cuts the lower half of the hot dog into “tentacles”. I then pulled the base out and removed the “eyes” that held the hot dog in place. A little shake and the hot dog fell off the tentacle hold and voila! A hot dog with eight “arms”!

      Why don’t you just go to their Web site and see the illustrated How-To? It sounds more appetizing without bothering with too many words.

      I was thrilled to have made my own OctoDogs. I heated a small skillet with some oil, gently fried the hot dogs by rolling them in the hot oil. I served them with a couple of fried eggs and some fried rice for a Sunday breakfast, Filipino hotsilog (hot dog-siningag-itlog), or hot dog-fried rice-fried egg, style.

      I don’t know any kid out there who needs convincing to eat a hot dog and I don’t know why any one would refuse to eat a dressed up hot dog with “legs”. At almost $20 including shipping and handling, it’s an unnecessary toy that’s fun to have in your kitchen for your child and your child at heart.

      Related post/s:
      Buy your own OctoDog!
      It was timely that I had real baby octopus for a pasta dish I was cooking

    • Rhubarb Sauce

      The two Rs of spring–ramps and rhubarb–came and went but I was fast enough to get my yield in this year. With the ramps, I pickled and sautéed; with the rhubarb, I made dessert and this sauce. I was craving fish after an hour-long workout in the pool and I ended up taking home a whole branzino with me. (From Whole Foods, not the pool.) In the end, it was the wrong fish to match with this sauce because branzino is so rich that it doesn’t really need any help to taste good.

      The next day, I served this rhubarb sauce with fried and breaded tilapia fillet and together, they made the perfect match. A little tangy and a little sweet, it gave life to an otherwise plain white fish.

      Update: Cameron alerted me to a Jamie Oliver recipe using pork belly with rhubarb sauce. So I browned some cubed pork belly and braised them in rhubarb sauce for about 1 hour at 350º.

      Ingredients:
      6 pieces of rhubarb, chopped in half-inch pieces
      a small knob of ginger, peeled, minced, chopped
      1 small red onion, finely chopped
      1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
      1/2 cup sugar
      1 cinnamon stick
      a pinch of whole cloves
      1 star anise
      salt, pepper

      1. Place rhubarb, 1/4 cup water and ginger in a small saucepan. Simmer for 5 minutes and set aside.
      2. In another pan, combine sugar and cider vinegar with 2 cups water and bring to a rolling boil. Add the onion. Cook for 2 minutes. Drain to discard the onions. Remove cinnamon, cloves and anise. Add this mixture to the rhubarb. Season with salt and pepper.

      Related post/s:
      Rhubarb crisp is one of my favorite desserts
      And there’s the more dense rhubarb crumb cake

    • Pork Chops with Guinness Beer

      The pork chops from DeBragga.com glistened in the morning light coming through the kitchen. I couldn’t get over how beautiful the marbling was. Pork chops are easy to find but they’re never beautifully cut like these, almost like lamb.

      I’ve cooked a lot of tried and true pork chop recipes for this Web site but I wanted to try something new for this batch. I used Mark Bittman’s ribs recipe using stout beer. That looked so good and I wanted to try it for pork. A little bit of browning and braising were all it took for the meat to fall apart from the bones. I even had to skip the roasting part and just served them straight from the Dutch oven. Golden brown on the outside but soft inside, they were the perfect pick me ups for a lazy weekend lunch.

      Ingredients:
      4 pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper
      1 bottle or can of Guinness, or any stout beer
      3 cinnamon sticks
      1 tsp of allspice
      2 red chiles, crushed
      1 small knob of ginger, peeled, minced
      2 cloves of garlic, minced
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. Preheat oven to 350º. In the meantime, brown pork chops in a large Dutch oven with hot oil over medium heat, about 8 minutes per side. Remove chops and set aside. Discard oil except for 2 tbsps.
      2. Return the pot over medium heat. Sauté garlic and ginger. Toast cinnamon sticks, chiles and allspice. Add the chops back in and pour in beer. Using a wooden spoon, scrape off the bits and pieces from the bottom of the pan.
      3. When oven is ready, cover the pot and braise in the oven for 1 hour, turning the chops after 45 minutes. Serve chops on a plate with some of the beer sauce.

      Related post/s:
      Get your own beautiful pork chops from DeBragga.com
      Match pork chops with cherries in the summer
      Or whiskey in the winter

    • Searching for a Good Taco: El Barrio, East Harlem

      East Harlem, the neighborhood bordered by 96th and 125th Streets between Fifth Avenue and the east river, is referred to as El Barrio because it has been a predominantly Puerto Rican enclave. It literally means “the neighborhood”. Some people would even say it goes all the way to 142nd because Dominicans and other Caribbean groups have assembled in that part of Manhattan. Mexicans have also moved in to take advantage of the still-affordable rents above 116th Street. But with the on and off plans of a giant Home Depot and a Wal-Mart on the east side to match the condos going up, young families driven by rising rents downtown have also called El Barrio home.

      Today, an Old Navy, H&M and a Starbucks on 125th Street co-exist with the historic Apollo Theater while juice counters, fabric stores and chicharron shops are struggling to keep their businesses open. The future of El Barrio is iffy and we all just have to wait and see what the rezoning of Harlem brings.

      Searching for a good taco in this side of Harlem–I live on the west side–was easier and less contentious than recent events in the news. I knew it as soon as I walked in Taco Mix, tip-toed and caught a glimpse of the big vat of pork simmering next to the grill. I thought I was going to need some of my friends to help me scour the many–and there are many–Mexican holes-in-the-wall in East Harlem, but after comparing several tacos from all four of the stores below, Taco Mix’s buche taco took the cake.

      1. La Lomita Del Barrio, 209 East 116th Street, 212/289.8138

      I stopped by La Lomita because they had beautiful fruits and vegetables for sale outside their store. I saw my first watermelon of the season, decided against buying and carrying such a heavy load, and instead sat at the tiled counter to eat chorizo and carnitas tacos. The chorizo was crushed and crumbled before the lady put it on the grill. I loved the sharpness of the chiles and the aroma of the cloves, but I would have rather eaten it as a sausage without the tortilla. The carnitas was just all right because some of the bigger chunks were a little dry. A lot of cilantro and onions helped me finish them off.

      2. Michelle Deli & Grocery, 215 East 116th Street, 212/828.9097

      Just next door was another deli with a tiled counter selling tacos. The tripe was not on the menu but I watched an older man devour a bowl of it while I waited for my order of beef tacos: cecina which is more jerky and therefore chewy, and suadero, or beef stew, which was a little on the dry side and needed some fat content. I sure wish I got the tripe stew instead of their tacos.

      3. Cart run by two ladies off the corner of 116th and Second Avenue

      I stopped by the cart covered in blue tarp off Second Avenue to ask the ladies what they were selling because the tortillas they were pressing looked like arepas. They were for tacos, they insisted, so I bought a chicken and a beef one. They didn’t hear my usual request of skipping the mayo-like white sauce, so I was forced to eat them like messy gyros. They were bigger and needed to be packed and taken at home to enjoy. Back at home, I realized that the tortillas were thicker and more dense. Though I like that combination for my cakes, it wasn’t the best tortilla for tacos.

      4. Taco Mix, 234 East 116th Street, 212/831.8147

      I’ve gone back to Taco Mix several times after my initial visit for this write-up. When I go, I always order the buche, or the pork belly, and the oreja, or the ears, for some texture. I’ve since tasted their carnitas, chorizo, al pastor and suadero tacos and must say that all their tacos are far more superior than those of the surrounding delis and stores.

      When the lone table in the back is unoccupied, you can sit, eat in and watch the Mexican soap opera blaring from the TV screens. Young men walk in and out, order their dinner and stand over the condiments counter to eat swiftly, while the two guys who work the kitchen chit-chat behind all the meat-smelling smoke. Just another slice of life in Harlem some of us call home.

      A nice rewarding bonus–$2.50 for a quarter pound of chicharron from Chuchifrito off Third Avenue:

      Related post/s:
      More El Barrio East Harlem taco photos on Flickr
      Background on finding the best taco in New York City project
      The tacos in Staten Island are worth the ferry ride

    • Your Favorite Meats from DeBragga.com

      It felt like Christmas morning when I received a Styrofoam box in the mail that was filled with two racks of lamb, four pork chops, four rib steaks and a container of fleur de sel. The Rack Pack grill kit from DeBragga.com was the only thing I was waiting for before I could begin my long weekend. When it arrived and I saw how beautiful the choice cuts were inside their vacuum-sealed plastics, I couldn’t wait to start cooking and grilling them for myself and my friends.

      You know when they say you pay a price for something premium? This rack of lamb is it. In Austin, we bought the same size of rack for about $50; it would be a little more than that in New York City. If you think about the grill kit’s price, you already know you have a good deal if two racks will cost you at least $100 at your supermarket. But this is not your supermarket’s lamb–they had a good amount of fat and we only needed some salt and pepper to make a meal out of each rack.

      For the beef steaks, we used the oil it rendered after roasting it in the oven and cooked it with some garlic, shallots, thyme and a splash of red wine to make an accompanying sauce. The steaks were delicious with the sauce, but I also found that they were rich and succulent on their own. I know you’re not supposed to say never, but after these DeBragga meats, I think I can comfortably say that I will never become a vegetarian.

      Related post/s:
      Feast your eyes on more photos from DeBragga.com
      $240 for a grill kit is an awesome deal at DeBragga.com

    • Squid Stuffed Squid

      Seriously, what did people do before Google? When I bought several squid from Chinatown, I wasn’t exactly sure if they were squid or cuttlefish. They looked bigger than the squid I’m used to and if you’ve been to any of the stores in Chinatown, you know it’s hard to get a straight answer from any of the clerks. The squid were already cleaned off the plastic-y spine inside and that was my only way to tell one from the other: the cuttlefish “skeleton” is wider than that of a squid’s.

      So I Googled and found several indistinguishable photos of squid and cuttlefish-looking things but then finally discovered this short paragraph from EnchantedLearning.com: The body of the cuttlefish (the cuttle) is flattened and has fins that extend along the entire length of the mantle. There you go; mine didn’t and that settled the dilemma of naming this recipe.

      They were also butterflied open which required some butcher’s twine to close them up again after being stuffed. If you can get your squid cleaned but intact, you can easily stuff them through the head opening where the tentacles used to be.

      Ingredients:
      5 squid, cleaned, kept whole if possible, tentacles separated and finely chopped
      1 small carrot, finely chopped
      5 pieces of string beans, chopped
      1/2 cup of bread crumbs
      1 medium can of crushed tomatoes
      2 stalks of parsley, finely chopped
      2 stalks of scallions, finely chopped
      2 cloves garlic, minced
      1 red chile, crushed
      oil, salt, pepper

      1. Preheat an oven to 375º.
      2. Heat some oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saué garlic until brown and then the scallions until translucent. Add the chopped squid tentacles, the carrots and beans and cook for about 5 minutes by frequently tossing. Season with salt and chile. Add the bread crumbs and the parsley and mix to toast. You should now have a somewhat sticky mixture for your stuffing. Remove from heat and set aside.
      3. On a large chopping block, lay the butterflied squid open. Spoon some of the tentacle mixture and spread all along the cavity. Grab one end of the squid and roll over the other. Wrap and tie to close with butcher’s twine. Gently move stuffed squid to a baking dish. Pour crushed tomato sauce over them.
      4. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. To serve, carefully slice each squid into 3. The twine should easily come off so you can discard.

      Related post/s:
      Save some of the squid ink and make a stew
      If you’d rather not play with squid, get some shrimps
      Part of my Mother Hen project: omakase bento #8