Preparing Squid and Octopus

Appears in
The Cook's Companion: A step-by-step guide to cooking skills including original recipes

By Josceline Dimbleby

Published 1991

  • About
Squid are widely available and extremely good, as well as being inexpensive. They are also far easier to prepare and cook than is often imagined. When my children were very young their favourite meal used to be ’squid and chips’. This was after eating it every day in Spain, where they also watched with great fascination the octopuses being beaten on the rocks to make them tender.
Smaller squid are perfectly tender as long as you don’t cook them either too long or too fiercely. Slices of squid literally need no more than a minute or two of fairly gentle cooking, just until they turn an opaque white.