Stuffed Calamari
Updated May 2, 2024
- Total Time
- 1 hour 30 minutes
- Cook Time
- 1 hour 30 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- ½of an 8- or 10-ounce bag black-pepper taralli *see note
- 1½pounds large squid (about 12), cleaned, bodies and tentacles separated
- ¼cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1½tablespoons unsalted butter
- 5garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- Red-pepper flakes, to taste
- ¾pound peeled shrimp, cut into ½-inch pieces
- Kosher salt
- ¼-½ cup dry white wine
- ½teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
- ¼cup extra-virgin olive oil
- Red-pepper flakes, to taste
- 4garlic cloves, crushed
- 228-ounce cans crushed tomatoes
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1handful Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped
For the Calamari
For the Sauce
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Preparation
- Step 1
In a food processor, pulse the taralli until it forms coarse crumbs. Measure 1¼ cups of the crumbs. Pulse the squid tentacles in the food processor to chop them fine, and pat them very dry with paper towels.
- Step 2
In a large skillet, heat ¼ cup olive oil over medium heat. When shimmering, add the squid tentacles, and spread them out. Sear until golden brown, about 5 minutes, then add the butter, garlic and red-pepper flakes to taste. Cook, stirring, until the garlic just starts to color, about 1 minute.
- Step 3
Add the shrimp, season with salt and cook until just pink, about 2 minutes. Add the wine, and simmer for 1 minute. Turn off the heat, and stir in the taralli crumbs and lemon zest. The crumbs should look like wet, clumpy sand. If the mixture is too dry, sprinkle in a little more wine, and allow the filling to cool until just warm.
- Step 4
Stuff each squid body with the filling, leaving the bottom and top inches unfilled (the stuffing will expand as it cooks). Secure the tops with toothpicks, and season all over with salt.
- Step 5
Make the sauce: In a wide, deep pan, warm ¼ cup olive oil over medium heat. Add red-pepper flakes to taste and the garlic, and cook until fragrant and just beginning to color. Stir in the tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper.
- Step 6
Bring the tomatoes to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer the sauce for 15 minutes. Add the calamari and any extra stuffing, and bring back to a very gentle simmer.
- Step 7
Cover the pan, and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat to make sure the sauce maintains a lazy bubble. Adjust with salt to taste. Garnish with the parsley. Serve with bread or pasta.
- If you can’t find black-pepper taralli (crisp ring-shaped breadsticks) or another savory flavor, substitute Italian breadsticks and lots of black pepper.
Private Notes
Comments
A good quality bread crumb works nicely for stuffed calamari. However, the baking process of taralli deeply intensifies the flavor of the black pepper. This makes them a very desirable ingredient for the filling and yields a uniquely rich taste to the dish.
Instead of starting with breadsticks, is there any reason to NOT use good bakery bread crumbs and lots of fresh black pepper?
This is a very typical Southern recipe, but with a very cool bit of technique that like-as-not made Camille Loccisano's stuffed calamari extra special. Besides the use of taralli, note that Camille seared the ground-up tentacles until they were golden before incorporating them into the filling. This raises the bar for stuffed calamari. Searing the creatures creates awesome flavor. Thank you Camille. Joe Bruno from Bay Ridge, now of bruculino restaurant in Norwalk, CT
Second time, as good as the first. One comment about squid sizing. following this stuffing guideline provided me only enough stuffing for 6 very large squid tubes (~8 inches long).
At times, meal planning goes like this: see what's fresh at the fish counter, then plan a meal. Tonight, it was calamari steaks. At the store, I used the NYT app and found this recipe but didn't read in detail. Instead of tubes, I used pounded calamari steaks. In lieu of tentacles, I ground up some vegetarian sausage. The Italian market didn't have black pepper taralli, but they had traditional. So, I ground some Tellicherry pepper berries and threw in. AMAZING!!!!!!!!! Served w/ Zucchini Frico.
I made this for a Christmas Eve dinner. My first time serving stuffed squid. I read a lot of recipes and liked this one best. Per my usual approach, I ramped up the amount of garlic. When I do it next time (and I will) I will add thyme to both the filling and the sauce and reduce the proportion of bread crumbs in the filling to shrimp and the yummy tentacles. Also will start sauce with a coup,e of anchovy fillets. Even without these tweeks, a total hit. Squid fork tender.
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