Salt-Baked Squid

Jiu Yim Sin Yau

Preparation info
    • Difficulty

      Medium

Appears in
Eileen Yin-fei Lo's New Cantonese Cooking

By Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

Published 1988

  • About

This is a rather famous Hakka dish; it is called salt-baked even though it isn’t. The process of water-blanching the squid, then coating it and oil-blanching it, approximates baking to the Hakka taste. In Cantonese, jiu yim means “pepper and salt,” and those are the flavors that dominate this dish.

Ingredients

  • ½ pound fresh squid, meat only
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 2

Method

  1. Prepare the squid: pull out the tentacles and intestines. Cut squid open lengthwise, in butterfly fashion. With a Chinese cleaver, score the squid in a crisscross pattern. Then, with kitchen shears, cut into pieces 2 inches by