Well it all started with a simple lure from my spouse. She recently pickled peperoncini from her garden. Then came the volley of “we like fried calamari”, " local Italian sausage would enhance the dish", “fresh squid is in season”, and then “my peperoncini would make it complete” . Well I took the hint. How hard could it be to clean a few squid? My mistake as I thought the squid already came cleaned…well sort of… the ink gland was removed. Did you know the eyes squirt ink too? I found out. Having not done this before, nor watched anyone else do it, I fumbled through my first squid from the 8 purchased. Tentacles cut…check, head off … check, just start making rings right…wrong. I made the rings but I had to back track to remove the now cut cartilage backbone, skin, guts & pudding, and winglets. It took me about 4 more squid before I figured on a sequence to cut the tentacles, use the head to pull out the guts/pudding, peel back the start of the cartilage and pull entire piece out, cut off wings, peel off outer skin, cut rings, and clean out any other entrails. Took me at least 1 hr to get this done and another 30 min on how to best bread these. I hate to say it but at this point my feeling is never to do this again and to test out the frozen breaded variety. Otherwise, I shall leave my calamari sampling to restaurant visits…Gary
Alton Brown had a good primer on cleaning squid.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/07/how-to-clean-whole-fresh-squid-instructions-slideshow.html#
Yeah. Best to ask the guys at the fish counter if the squid are cleaned before buying. If not, ask them to do it.
It must depend on the supplier because I’ve seen them on sale fully cleaned or a step or two short.
Whole Food cleans them
Just use cow rectums like a normal person.
I remember years ago in Charleston SC my wife and I would go to this Greek place for their calamari. They served it in big chunks and the head/tentacle piece would often still have the beak. We would just squeeze it to force it out. Only place I’ve seen that. It was so good though, and cheap. We were pretty broke then and would split an appetizer order for dinner. Huge plate for about $5. Maybe split a salad if we had the money. We were just kids then but I still love squid. I’m pretty good at cleaning them now. Great for bait too.
In Santorini we had them fried whole, everything but beak and ink sack. Quite good.
George
A lot of chinese places serve baby squid and still have the beak.