Salt-Baked Squid

Name: Salt-Baked Squid
Cuisine: Hakka
Ingredients: Pinch of white pepper; ¼ teaspoon five-spice powder; 3 cups water; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon sesame oil; 1 tablespoon fresh hot chili peppers, cut into ⅛-inch rounds; 4 cups peanut oil; 2 tablespoons cornstarch; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 tablespoons salt; Shredded iceberg lettuce (for a garnish); ½ pound fresh squid, meat only

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

Asia
China
Guangdong Province
Cantonese
Main course
Spicy
Baking
Gluten-free

Method

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 1½