Calamari à la Flaczki

Flaki or (diminutive) flaczki is a Polish soup-like dish made with beef tripe. Some people would not try it just because of the main ingredient, and they cannot imagine eating it. Others love it.

The Idea

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I was thinking of trying to prepare calamari in the same way as flaki are prepared, for quite some time. For me, the texture of calamari is quite similar to the texture of beef tripe in this dish, so I thought that calamari seasoned like flaki can be an appealing dish, especially for people who are put off by tripe.

I finally tried this idea recently because of some coincidences. I had lunch with friends and some of us had fried calamari. They were really well prepared, but for me missed some additional seasoning. That reminded me of my idea. What tripped (pun intended) the scales was that I was planning to buy and make some tripe anyway, so on the way home I stopped at an Italian store where I usually buy beef tripe, but they were sold out. However they had frozen squid rings, so I bought them and decided to check my idea.  BTW, Italians also have tripe dishes, but they prepare them differently, often in tomato sauce.

I thought my idea was quite original, but after getting home I googled calamari and flaki, and found that there are more than a few recipes for this dish, mostly published in Polish. Anyway, by then I was committed to making the dish, and try to do it my way.

When reading recipes for calamari (fried or à la flaki) I found that there are two details that affect the texture of calamari. To make them more tender you need to marinate them in salted milk, or even better, in salted buttermilk. Second, when frying the calamari you need to do it quick and short. I tried to keep it in mind when cooking, but initially the result was not that good. In the end though, I managed to get the dish that tasted very good and very close to regular flaki. As you can infer from this, this recipe is probably not final, and I will experiment more to get it done easier.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 lb	Frozen calamari rings
1 l	Buttermilk
1 tbsp	salt
3 l	Broth: you can make your own, or use one from the carton, or use bullion cubes, or other concentrate.
3 tbsp	Olive oil
4 tbsp	Butter
1	Large carrot, cut into short julienne pieces (see Note below)
1	Large onion chopped
1	About 10 cm-long white portion of a leak, cut in half then thinly sliced
1	Celery stick, thinly sliced, or equivalent amount of celery root, julienned
2 – 4 tbsp	Marjoram leaves
1 tsp	Hot Hungarian paprika
1-2 tbsp	Sweet Hungarian paprika

Note: For cutting a carrot into short matchsticks (across not along) I use Börner V-slicer with julienne insert. I also use it to chop onions; once cut into matchsticks, they separate mostly into small cubes. I would use it also to slice the celery sticks but mine were frozen, so I just used my knife.
The sharp V design of this gadget makes slicing easier than using slicers/mandolins with more perpendicular angle of the blade. Beware, the blades are very sharp, so using the safety holder is a must, having cut-resistant gloves is a good idea. Several versions are available on Amazon.ca.
Disclaimer: I have no association with the manufacturer nor Amazon, and do not benefit from expressing my opinion here.

Directions

1. Thaw the calamari rings, then rinse them with cold water.
2. Place them in the bowl, and cover completely with buttermilk. Add salt. Place in a fridge for 3 hours or more, even overnight.This will tenderize them and also almost completely remove fishy smell.
3. Melt butter in a frying pan, with addition of olive oil
4. Add onions and saute until translucent
5. Add carrots and saute for 2 – 3 minites
6. Add chopped leaks and celery sticks and continue sauteing until all vegetables are soft
7. In a large pot bring broth to boil and and reduce heat to low
8. Add the sauteed vegetables and spices, and simmer until the broth becomes well seasoned. Set aside or keep on very low heat.
9. Take the calamari rings out of the fridge and drain the buttermilk in a colander. Rinse the rings with cold water until all buttermilk is drained. At this point you can cut the rings in half, if you wish.
10. Bring the broth back to boiling and add the calamari rings. Boil very briefly, 30 seconds to one minute maximum. If you boil them any longer, they will become rubbery and stiff.
11. Take the soup off the heat and leave for a few minutes before serving.
    The following steps are optional:
12. If the calamari become too rubbery and stiff you have an option to cook them much longer preferably in an electric pressure cooker with an addition of 1 tsp of baking soda. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) decomposes thermally at boiling temperature to sodium carbonate (simply: soda) and makes the solution more alkaline. This often causes various meat pieces to become more tender during cooking. Being a chemist, I checked the pH and it went from about 6.5 to about 8.
13. Continue cooking for one and a half to two hours in the pressure cooker. In a regular pot you may need to cook for about four hours, adding boiling water as it evaporates.
14. To revert the alkalinity, add juice from half a lemon (I got the pH back to between 6 and 7). The reason for doing that is that some people are sensitive to having alkaline food containing soda and sometimes have stomach reaction to that. I usually try to avoid adding baking soda to my cooking, but if I use it, I will try to neutralize it at the end.

Calamari prepared with very short cooking tasted very similar and had similar texture to flaki I prepare, but the rings did not absorb much of the spices and flavour from the broth. Do not get me wrong, the dish would satisfy people who like flaki, and also those who wouldn’t touch flaki but like calamari.

On the other hand, calamari cooked very long did absorb flavour from the soup, had about the right texture,but they shrunk quite a bit. The choice is yours.

To contact me with questions or comments, please send me an e-mail to [email protected]