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Bento Recipe: Teriyaki squid

 
   
 

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Curly!What you'll need:

    Some squid tube (body) - the large kind, not the little bitty calamari type
    2.5 tbsp of soy sauce
    1 tbsp of sugar
    1 tbsp of mirin
    Vegetable oil for cooking

I guess you can make a variation of this with small squidlets, but I use large squid tubes, the ones that are about 8" long. Cut it into rings 2" wide, then cut these rings in half along the folds (if it was packaged flat). Check the inside surface for remnants of the clear, plastic-like catilagenous skeleton; you don't want to crunch into that later. Finally, cut the meat into segments approximately 2" square, or whatever other size you like. The bits pictures above are 2" squares and a 2"x3" rectangle.

Turn the inside side up and, with a sharp, nonserrated knife, cut parallel diagonal grooves on the meat as shown above. Do not cut all the way through! As long as you can see that some cut has been made, that's enough. Mix the sugar, mirin, and soy sauce well, then put the meat in it and let it soak for a half hour or so.

Squid cooks quickly, and gets very tough when overdone, so be alert and don't let it cook a few extra minutes "just to be sure." You won't like the results, trust me. So, when you're ready to cook, lightly oil a pan and heat it to medium. When it's hot put several pieces of meat on it, scored side down. The meat will quickly - as in within a minute - turn whitish. As soon as that happens, turn the pieces over, scored side up. The squid will curl up quickly. Take it off the heat 30 seconds after turning the last piece, put the pieces on a plate, and cook the next batch.