How to easily and quickly peel frozen and boiled squids from the film and how much to cook them with water after boiling for a salad? How to defrost and properly and quickly clean the carcass and squid tentacles and boil? How to clean squid from the film easily and quickly

My husband brought home a couple of frozen squids and said: “I want a salad!” I was left alone with these "monsters" and thought:

  • how to quickly clean a squid frozen from the film
  • how many minutes to cook squid thawed and already peeled for salad.

The squid salad has already been prepared, and now I will be happy to answer all your questions. I hope my experience is useful to you 😉

Cooking instruction (step by step)

  1. Defrosting.

If you need to defrost the squid quickly, then simply immerse the carcasses in cold (not hot) water and wait a couple of minutes. After that, we take out all the ice, if there are any left, wash the carcasses well, take out the chord (transparent "sticks" that you will find inside). In principle, squids are already ready for cooking.

2. Film removal

Squid skin is a thin film. I do not advise taking it off while the squid is still raw. This is monkey work. During cooking, the skin easily leaves itself. After cooking, simply remove the squid meat from the water, let it cool slightly and rinse under running water. Remaining skin particles fall off easy and fast.

The second option: lower the thawed squid carcass for a few seconds in hot water. The film will shrink and easily rebound.

After that, like a squid succeeded remove film Let's start cooking right away. Pour 2 liters of water into a saucepan, bring to a boil, salt. We lower the squid carcass into boiling water, wait 1 minute until the water boils again. Cook after boiling literally 1.5 - 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the meat in hot water for another 1-2 minutes. We take out. Ready!

Thawed and cleaned squid need to cook how much: literally 1.5 - 2 minutes in boiling water, no more. Otherwise, the meat will become tough, like rubber. And for a salad, we don’t need it at all.

Salad recipe with squid and cucumber

Actually, for the sake of which all this was started: we prepared a salad with squid and fresh cucumber for dinner. Sharing the recipe 😉

Recipe #1

Products:

  • 2 carcasses of squid (about 300 g),
  • 1 pack of crab sticks,
  • 1 fresh cucumber
  • 4 chicken eggs,
  • mayonnaise,
  • salt.

Cooking:

1. Defrost squids, cook, peel off the film, cut into strips or cubes.

2. Defrost crab sticks and cut into rings.

3. Three cucumbers on a grater (but you can also cut into strips).

4. Eggs are also three on a grater.

5. Put the ingredients in layers in a deep salad bowl, spreading some layers with mayonnaise. The order of the layers doesn't matter. You can layer the ingredients according to your taste.

Recipe #2

Another salad that we have not prepared yet, but would really like to try. In the last recipe, I personally did not have enough piquancy, some kind of sourness. And here, pickled cucumbers are supposed to be in the composition. They will spice up the salad with squid.

Products:

  • 1 carcass of squid (about 150 g),
  • 1 pickled or pickled cucumber (about 150 g),
  • 2 chicken eggs,
  • 1 medium onion
  • mayonnaise,
  • salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking:

  1. Eggs are boiled, cleaned
  2. Squid, if it is frozen - defrost, quickly peel off the film and cook for 1.5 - 2 minutes.
  3. Onion cut into thin half rings.
  4. Squid meat, eggs, cucumber - all cut into strips.
  5. We put all the ingredients in a bowl, salt, pepper and season with mayonnaise.
  6. Mix and serve!

How do you prepare squid salad? Write in the comments 😉 Bon appetit!

How often do we want to cook a delicious salad with boiled squids, but only one thing stops us - frozen squids are very difficult to clean. My step-by-step recipe with a photo will tell you in detail about how to clean squid from a film simply, easily and quickly, without much worries and hassle. By learning how to clean squid correctly, you can more often pamper your family with various delicious dishes, which include this healthy and tasty inhabitant of the seas.

How to clean squid from the film quickly and correctly

The average serving of frozen squid for salad is 500 grams. These are three medium carcasses. Although, in principle, there is no difference how many squids you clean.

First of all, the carcasses need to be thawed. It is best to do this for the first 10 hours in the main compartment of the refrigerator, and then finally let them thaw at room temperature.

Put the thawed carcasses in a saucepan.

We boil water in a kettle. Pour the carcasses with boiling water for exactly 1 minute. As soon as you start pouring water on the squid, you will immediately see how the red film rolls up into small lumps.

After the specified time, put the carcasses in ice water.

The squids are already almost cleaned, but the remaining dark parts should be cleaned from above with a knife.

Also, the insides from the carcasses and the chord should be removed. The notochord is the transparent backbone of the squid.

If you are going to cook a salad from squid in the future, then my step-by-step recipe with a photo telling in detail about how to make a salad so that they do not become “rubber” will come in handy.

Also, I advise you to cook very tasty.

Many original seafood recipes remain unused if the hostess does not know how to clean squid at home correctly and quickly. But you only need to decide on an experiment once and learn a simple process. In the future, healthy and nutritious squid will become the best part of a variety of salads, decorate the table fried, boiled, stewed or pickled.

A smart choice is the key to success

In order to get a tasty and healthy seafood on the table, you need to choose it correctly in the store. It depends on how easy the films are to be cleaned and how tender the cooked meat is. It is not recommended to buy peeled squids, since some of the nutrients have already been lost, and the taste will be much worse.

  1. You need to choose not large individuals, but smaller ones. Then you can avoid the effect of rubber meat, the skins will be easily removed.
  2. If frozen squids were stored with violations and have already been thawed, they will be bitter when cooked, so you only need to pick up carcasses that have not stuck together.
  3. It is necessary to ensure that the meat under the film is white. If the temperature regime was not maintained, it will become the color of the film - cyanotic or pinkish.

    Sometimes the carcasses lie on the display case for a sufficient time to change the taste. To be sure of the correct storage, offer the seller to serve you carcasses from the briquette. If you are refused under the pretext that they "do not tear off", then such a product does not suit you, you need to purchase properly frozen squids.

  4. Before cooking, the meat must be kept frozen, then the taste will be preserved, and it will be easy to clean.


How to remove the film from frozen squid?

The process is incredibly simple.

  1. Prepare a pot of boiling water.
  2. Take the squids out of the freezer and place them in a bowl.
  3. Pour boiling water over seafood. At the same time, almost all of the skin will come off on its own.
  4. Immediately quickly drain the hot water and rinse the contents of the bowl under running water, carefully peeling off the remaining film. It is better to act quickly, otherwise squids cook very quickly and can even be cooked if they are not removed from boiling water in time.
  5. It remains only to remove the insides and the flexible spine.


Is it possible to remove the film from defrosted meat?

There are situations when squids get home already defrosted. Summer heat and unforeseen travel delays should not prevent you from preparing a delicious dish. To do this, you need to perform the following algorithm.

  1. Prepare a pot of boiling water and seasonings (salt, bay leaf and pepper).
  2. Cut the carcass lengthwise and remove the insides.
  3. Rinse the meat well.
  4. Boil carcasses in seasoned boiling water for 2-3 minutes.
  5. Take out the squid. In this case, the films will remain in the water, calving themselves.


How to work with chilled squids?

If the squids were just recently taken from the seabed and they fell into your hands chilled, this is a great success. The meat will be the most delicious and nutritious. However, the difference will be in the presence of the head and tentacles. Squids will have to be cleaned on their own at home. If the head needs to be permanently removed, the tentacles can be eaten. They are cut off at the very eyes. There is also a film on them, the principle of working with it is the same as for a whole carcass.

And to clean the skins, you need to perform a number of simple steps.

  1. Prepare a pot of boiling water.
  2. Put the squids with the insides and the chord already removed in a colander, pour boiling water over, and then immediately with cold water.
  3. Pull the skin from the larger part to the thin one, just scrape off the wings.
  4. Treat the tentacles in the same way. The only difference is that it will be even easier to remove the film, it will practically come off by itself under the action of boiling water.



Ready-made squid carcasses can be cooked in a variety of ways. They can be boiled for several minutes on high heat or forty minutes on low heat. You can fry thin rings separately and with vegetables. They are delicious if the meat is marinated, stuffed, stewed and baked. In this case, the main thing is to precisely control the process so as not to overdo it with heat treatment: no one likes tough meat with a rubbery aftertaste. The time that the carcasses spent under boiling water also counts.

You have to be careful when filming. Both colored and transparent are subject to removal. If you leave a piece and cook meat with it, the piece will be hard and compressed. Properly processed seafood will become a real delicacy that can become a gourmet gourmet dish prepared at home.

Squids are ten-armed edible molluscs of the cephalopod order, which are simply irreplaceable in cooking. Hundreds of dishes are prepared from this marine inhabitant: salads, soups, snacks. For example, crispy battered rings can be served both as an appetizer and as an addition to the festive table. And to make the dishes tasty, you need to know how to properly clean the squid. There are many secrets and rules in this process.

In general, if you have this product from the category of a “rare guest” in your diet, urgently correct yourself: squid meat contains iron and potassium, iodine, zinc and selenium.

It has no cholesterol at all, but a lot of protein.

The calorie content is relatively low - 100 kcal per 100 grams (the number of kcal varies depending on the method of preparation).

Dishes with squid are a high-quality "building" material for muscle tissue, which has a tonic, anti-sclerotic, vasotonizing effect.

When using this sea mollusk, toxins and salts of heavy metals are removed, digestion improves and the work of the endocrine system (especially the thyroid gland) is supported.

Usually this product is rarely used by those housewives who do not know how to clean squids, what part to eat, and also how and how much to cook for a salad or some other dish. Of course, there are difficulties, but they are minimal! It is worth doing everything once and then you will only be surprised why you didn’t know how to do this before!

How to clean squid from a film: basic methods

There are 3 main ways to deal with the film on the carcass - clean without heat treatment and apply blanching, pre-boiling.

cold method

  1. A fresh or quick-frozen carcass is taken in hand and the film is pulled off with a “stocking”.
  2. If the film is not removed with a sharp movement, it can be separated little by little, delaying with smooth movements.
  3. After removing the film, the entrails of the marine animal and the chord (a chitinous likeness of the spine) are removed.

hot method

If the freezing method is unknown, especially if the squid thawed and froze again during storage, or was covered with ice, or was crushed and deformed, then the “stocking” cleaning method is not suitable for it.

  1. Such clams should be put in a heat-resistant colander and lowered into boiling water for 7-10 seconds.
  2. Then take it out and immediately lower it into ice water. In most cases, the film will wrinkle and peel off on its own.
  3. Sometimes you will need to work a little with your hands and remove its remains from the carcass.

Cleaning boiled squid

  1. If the squid was boiled in a film, then to remove it, you need to slightly cool the carcass.
  2. After that, you can use a new soft kitchen brush.
  3. It is enough to rub the carcass a little, and the film will gather into balls and peel off.

Experienced chefs do not like to use this method - the taste of the finished seafood is deteriorating.

How to clean fresh squid

If you are lucky enough to get a freshly caught mollusk, then you need to clean it right away. The process flow is simple:

  1. we hold the whole carcass well with one hand, with the other we tightly grasp the head immediately behind the eyes and confidently stretch it out - in one hand there is a body with fins, and in the other - a head with tentacles and entrails:
  2. we cut off the tentacles, the rest (eyes, entrails, the longest "mustache") are thrown away. Be careful with the beak - it may remain with tentacles, remove it, do not eat it;
  3. we free the carcass from the remaining entrails and the chitinous rod - we just pull it out by hand;
  4. We tighten the film under running water.

Cleaning whole frozen carcasses

  1. To clean the squid, it must be thawed.
  2. The best way to defrost is gradual, gentle.
  3. To do this, the carcass is transferred from the freezer to the refrigerator compartment.
  4. When it thaws, you need to move it to room temperature and keep it until it is completely restored to normal.
  5. We clean the same as freshly caught. After - rinse the carcasses with water and lower into boiling water.
  6. The length of stay in boiling water depends on further actions.
  7. If, after scalding, it is lowered into ice water, then a 10-second blanching is sufficient. Carcasses taken out of cold water are easily cleaned by hand. This method is reliable, but the squid cleaned with it is not so tasty.
  8. If the squid will be cleaned immediately after being pulled out of boiling water, then you need to keep it in water for about a minute. The film is carefully brushed off. The meat of squids cleaned in this way is juicier after cooking.

The easiest and fastest way to clean

  1. Frozen carcasses should be put in a bowl, poured with boiling water for a couple of minutes, then put under a stream of cold water and cleaned with hands from the film, chord and entrails.
  2. This method is really fast and easy. Its only disadvantage is that squids become less juicy and fragrant, they become stiff.

You can use such a “shock” method only with an acute shortage of time for gentle defrosting.

Seafood in general and squid in particular are extremely healthy. But how to choose a really healthy seafood? How to clean squid and boil? Let's try to understand the review.

If you want to buy a "not troublesome" product - buy peeled squid. But if you need tasty and healthy seafood, choose only unpeeled carcasses.

There are about ten types of squid on the Russian seafood market, but only a few of them deserve attention. One of the best is the Commander squid. Appearance: unpeeled carcass. Length: 35 cm. Skin color: gray with purple, uneven. Supplier: Russia.

The Patagonian squid is also highly valued. Appearance: unpeeled carcass 2-23 cm long. Skin color: red-brown, brown, uneven. Supplier: Spain.

In general, the color of squid depends on the type of cephalopod and can be grayish white (but not gray), pink, blue, purple.

How to choose chilled and frozen squids?

Important: the younger the squid, the more tender its meat. Choose small carcasses.

What to look for when choosing chilled squids:

  • The carcass is dense and elastic.
  • Squids must have a chitinous chord (spine).
  • Smell: fresh fish. A slight smell of ammonia may be present.

What to look for when choosing frozen squid:

  • The amount of ice on the carcass is 8% of the total weight of the cephalopod.
  • Frozen carcasses are easily separated from each other.
  • The color of the meat under the skin is only white!
  • The skin is intact, without obvious damage.

Do I need to clean squid before cooking?

Answer: yes. During cooking, unpeeled skin can add bitterness to squid meat.

How to easily and quickly clean fresh and thawed squid at home?

Procedure for cleaning fresh/chilled squid:

  • Lay the squid on a work surface.
  • Grab the clam's head just behind the eyes (where it joins the mantle). Pull your head forward, tearing the ligaments. The insides should slide out. Be careful not to damage the ink bag (sepia).


  • Feel for the chitin chord inside the mantle and remove it.


  • Remove the top film by carefully prying it off with a knife.


  • Rinse, if necessary, divide into portions.


  • Cut off the tentacles of the clam and fold them separately. Remove the squid's beak between the tentacles. Pour boiling water over the tentacles and transfer to ice water. Rinse, rubbing thoroughly with your fingers to remove thin skins.


The procedure for cleaning defrosted squids:

Important: frozen squid should be thawed by placing them in cold water.

  • Pour the carcasses of a few melted squids with boiling water. Leave for 30-60 s.
  • Remove squid from boiling water and place in ice water. From a sharp temperature drop, the skin peels off by itself.

Rinse the squids under running water, washing away any remaining skin.

Correctly and quickly clean the squid carcass?

This was discussed in detail in the previous part of the review.

Correctly and quickly clean the squid tentacles?

See the previous part of the review.

How to properly clean frozen squid from the film?

The test above is the most common way to clean frozen squid.

At the end of the article, you can watch a video with a master class on cleaning squid from chef Ilya Lazerson.

How to clean squid after cooking?

It is better to clean squids before cooking, because the unpeeled film gives a bitter taste to boiled squid meat.

How to store peeled squid?

Squids are perishable products.

Peeled raw squids can be stored in the refrigerator compartment at a temperature of 0 to +4⁰С for about 48 hours.

The shelf life of boiled squid should not exceed 12 hours. They should be stored in hermetically sealed packaging.

How to cook peeled squid in water after boiling for a salad and how much?

  • Squids are boiled in one or two carcasses to prevent the digestion of seafood.
  • Spices and seasonings that are used in the preparation of squid: salt, peppercorns, dill. You can also add basil or parsley if you like.
  • Pour 1.5-2 liters of water into the pan, add spices and salt, bring to a boil.
  • Place the peeled squid carcasses in boiling water. Cooking time: 2 min.
  • Take the seafood out of the water and put in the next batch. Ready seafood should be cooled immediately.

Important: if you cook a lot of shellfish, add water, salt and spices from time to time.

Chef Ilya Lazerson offers an interesting way to clean and cook squid. A detailed master class can be viewed in the video at the end of the article.

Video: Squid salad in two ways. Lazerson

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