New Résumé Entry: Squid Cleaner

Turns out that cleaning squid is much easier than it appears.

When you go to the store, you get this sloppy, floppy, inky pile of flesh with tentacles. Once you start to look at it a little closer, it's quite easy to do.

After washing it thoroughly, I pulled out the cartilage that runs down the center of the squid, and removed the head and tentacles, which left me with these two pieces.

(By the way, I am topless in these photos.)

There was still too much squid there. How was I going to get rings from that big piece on the right? That's when I realized that I still have to take the skin off in order to get to the fleshy part.

Volia! It finally looked like I expected it to. So I cut off the tentacles to use in the dinner, threw the head away and put my shirt back on. Now, wish me luck with the rest of the paella....

Edited at 8:15 p.m., Monday, Manila time, to add that the paella turned out okay, though it turns out that my wife is somewhat squeamish over eating squid prepared in our house, rather than by, as she put it, "someone who knows what he's doing." (And, as I pointed out, agreeing with her, I am from Iowa, so I know how to cook up some pig, but there aren't any squid farms within a thousand miles of where I grew up.)

The squid did have a little extra-squiddy-tasting flavor, so I'll buy two small squid next time and see if they work any better.