Lucky Squid 'n' Prawns, Spicy Vegetable Noodle Broth

Meal 34 - April 13th - Lucky Squid 'n' Prawns, Spicy Vegetable Noodle Broth

With a disproportionate number of seafood dishes in the 15 minute meals book (26, compared to 16 chicken for instance) I knew I had to get in touch with my inner Rick Stein and cook some of them or risk a real fish frenzy towards the end of the year. Amongst those 26 dishes there are three squid ones which I'd been putting off making as, although I do enjoy a good calamari, my knowledge of cooking the things are quite limited.


I chose this "lucky" squid dish not because it looked particularly tempting - I'm not really a fan of noodle soups - but because I happened to find this particular episode of 15 minute meals on the old Sky + and I thought I could use a little televisual instruction from Jamie. And given that I'd never bought, let alone cooked squid before, I asked the fishmonger to prepare it for me. So it's probably fair to say that, once the poor thing had been gutted, scrubbed, chopped up and dumped unceremoniously in a cheap blue carrier bag, I, and not the squid, was the lucky one.

I actually found it quite enjoyable to cook - possibly because it involves both chopping and slicing in the processor, and also griddling, my favourite cooking technique of all. You make a typical south east Asian curry paste and chuck it in the pan of stock along with the raw veg and noodles and it's quite satisfying to know that, hopefully, a few minutes later, you'll have made a healthy, tasty broth packed with different flavours and textures. Meanwhile you can focus on griddling the squid and prawns.

The cooked squid didn't quite resemble the picture in the book, but flavour-wise it was a winner. The honey glaze on the seafood definitely made a difference. The broth packed quite a punch and was delicious with all the crunchy veg. I even ate some of the mushrooms.

Lolz gave the dish 9/10. Difficulty rating 2/10.