Salt and Pepper Squid

Tonight I decided on a special treat of squid for tea after seeing a tasty looking recipe in a copy Good Food magazine that's been hanging around for ages. The original recipe is here and I tweaked it a little to match what I had in. It's a quick recipe (apart from preparing the squid!) that looks impressive and tastes delicious and here it is.

• 1 tbsp of black peppercorns (whole)
• 1 tsp of chilli powder
• 1/2 tbsp crushed sea salt (this was originalyl 1 tbsp in the recipe but trying to reduce my salt intake - it was still very salty!)
• 8 tbsp plain flour
• 400g squid, cleaned
• Groundnut oil for deep frying
• Lemon wedges to serve

Firstly - crush together the peppercorns, chilli flakes and sea salt in a pestle and mortar. Then mix this mixture with the flour. 

Cut the squid hoods up (they must have been prepared at this point, I asked the fish monger at Leeds Market to do this for me which is the easiest (and best!) way to make sure it's done properly). Slit down and across the squid to score (this makes the squid curl up when cooked which looks nice) and cut into bite sized strips. The original recipe doesn't include the tentacles but I did and they were well worth adding (I cut off the heads for good measure). 

Coat the squid pieces in the mixture and fry in the groundnut oil and fry for 4-5 minutes until golden. Make sure the oil is nice and hot before you put the squid in - it needs to be almost spitting at you so you get the best result for crispiness. The original recipe says 1-2 minutes but I left it in for a bit longer so they went crispy and golden brown. 

Serve with lemon (and salad, and olives, and bread and anything else you like!).