Name: Spicy Grilled Squid Salad
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced and fried until golden brown; 3 red eschalots, thinly sliced and fried until golden brown; 1 baby cos lettuce; 2 long red chillies, seeded and cut into julienne; 1 cup each of mint, coriander and sweet Thai basil leaves; ¼ cup chopped roasted peanuts; 1 tablespoon rice, roasted and ground to a coarse powder; ¼ cup fine julienne of ginger; ½ cup thinly sliced red onion; 3 red eschalots, thinly sliced; 250 g squid vegetable oil; 5 tablespoons fish sauce; 3 tablespoons lime juice; 6 tablespoons palm sugar; 1 teaspoon sea salt; 2 coriander roots, washed and scraped; 4 green bird’s eye chillies; 2 garlic cloves

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Simply Asian

By Neil Perry

Published 2000

About

A classic Thai salad, this is fresh, hot, sweet, sour and salty. The squid can be seared in a pan but is best chargrilled. The basic Thai dressing can be varied in any way you like as long as the taste is ultimately balanced.

Ingredients

Dressing

2 garlic cloves
4 green bird’s eye chillies
2 coriander roots, washed and scraped

Method

To make the dressing, pound the garlic, chillies, coriander and salt in a mortar with a pestle, then add the sugar and mix in the lime juice and fish sauce.

To clean the squid, pull out the tentacles, then pull off the side flaps and cut the squid down the centre so that it will open flat. With a small knife, cut out the gut and ink sac and discard. Scrape the skin off the body and flap