Salt Baked Squid = Salt and Pepper Calamari

My very favorite food in the whole wide world is shell-on, salt baked shrimp from the Chinese restaurant Lee How Fook in Philadelphia, where my family has been dining for decades. It is light, crisp, crunchy, and salty, with a slight peppery tang, perfect with slivers of scallion and hot green pepper that accompany it. It is my last-meal-before-I-die food. It is my take-one-thing-to-a-desert-island food. It is the morsel of food I save for my very last bite at the end of a big meal

But salt baked shrimp is not baked. It’s fried, and you can get it at other Chinese restaurants, where it is called salt and pepper shrimp. The thing is, I’ve never had salt and pepper shrimp anywhere that’s as good as the salt baked shrimp at Lee How Fook.

I have made passable salt baked shrimp at home, which suffices when I can’t make my way to Philadelphia. The problem is, no one else in my family eats shrimp. One family member is allergic. Another doesn’t like shrimp. And none of us should be eating shrimp because of the awful labor practices in the fishery and environmental degradation caused by shrimp farming. So I almost never make it. My wife and kids do, however, eat calamari. And the salt baked squid from Lee How Fook, while not quite as good as the shrimp, does hold its own.

A few weeks ago my mind drifted to food and what I was going to cook that evening, as it so often does. I thought about salt baked shrimp and almost dismissed it, knowing it would never work for my family. But salt baked squid would. And so I made salt and pepper calamari as part of a small plates menu for my wife and kids. It was delicious. While not quite Lee How Fook quality, it was close, with the same light, crispy, crunchy, salty coating, and a slight peppery tang, served with the same slivers of fresh scallion and hot green pepper, and a few sprigs of fresh cilantro thrown in for good measure. While maybe not last-meal-before-I-die quality, I certainly didn’t hesitate to gobble it up.

Salt Baked Squid or Salt and Pepper Calamari

To make my salt baked calamari, I combined recipes from two sources, Omnivore’s Cookbook’s Salt and Pepper Squid and Bon Appétit’s Salt and Pepper Shrimp. To make the coating as light as possible, I modified it. Omnivore’s Cookbook calls for almost equal proportions of flour, cornstarch, and cornmeal, while Bon Appétit only uses cornstarch. I found a happy medium and perfect coating by minimizing the amount of flour and cornmeal. To give the squid as much flavor as possible, I marinated it before coating and cooking as in Omnivore’s Cookbook’s recipe and tossed the final fried product in a finely ground Sichuan peppercorn salt as called for in Bon Appétit’s recipe. With this extra flavor, the dipping sauces suggested by Omnivore’s Cookbook were unnecessary. Finally, to make the recipe as close to what Lee How Fook serves, I topped it with slivers of fresh scallion and rounds of hot green chili, with a few sprigs of cilantro added in.

serves 4 as an appetizer or small plate, half hour

1 lb. small squid, cleaned

2 Tbsp. Shaoxing cooking wine, or dry sherry

1 tsp. kosher salt, divided

2 Tbsp. ginger, finely minced

2 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed

½ cup cornstarch

⅛ cup all-purpose flour

⅛ cup cornmeal

½ tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns, toasted and finely ground

1 scallion, white and green parts cut into thin slivers about an inch long

1 fresh long hot pepper (or jalapeño or Fresno chili), very thinly sliced into coins, seeds and membrane removed

¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves with tender stems

vegetable oil for deep frying

1. Remove the tentacles from the squid and place in a bowl. Cut the tube into ⅓-inch rings and add to the bowl with the tentacles. Add the Shoaxing cooking wine, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ginger, and garlic and mix to combine. Set aside in the refrigerator and allow to marinate for at least 15 minutes.
2. While the squid is marinating, prepare the coating by combining the cornstarch, flour, cornmeal, white pepper, and ¼ teaspoon salt in a medium size bowl. Set aside.
3. Toast the Sichuan peppercorns in a dry skillet for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Allow to cool. Combine with the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt and finely grind in a spice grinder or using a mortar and pestle. Set aside.
4. Cut the scallion, long hot pepper, and cilantro and set aside.
5. When ready to cook, add 2-3 inches of oil in a medium-size pot and heat to 375 ^oF if using a thermometer, or until a pinch of the coating bubbles rapidly when dropped in. If you are going to fry the squid in two or more batches, turn the oven to 200 ^oF to keep each batch warm. Set a wire rack in a sheet pan for draining oil from the cooked squid.
6. While the oil is heating, coat the squid. Put half of the coating into a large bowl. Drain the liquid from the squid and toss half of the shellfish with the coating until fully covered. Separate the pieces as much as possible.
7. When the oil is hot, carefully lower the squid into the pot with a slotted spoon or spider. Stir gently to separate the pieces. Stir frequently and cook until crispy, about 3 minutes. Remove the cooked squid to the wire rack on sheet pan with the slotted spoon or spider allowing as much oil to drip off as possible. Place in the oven to keep warm.
8. Coat and fry the remaining half of the squid, transferring to the wire rack when done.
9. When all the squid is cooked, transfer to a large metal bowl and sprinkle on the Sichuan peppercorn and salt mixture. Toss to coat the squid evenly.
10. Transfer to a serving plate and top with scallion, long hot pepper, and cilantro. Serve hot.

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