From DN Recipes by David Nagy · Food & Beverage

Crispy Fried Calamari Recipe

Published


Ingredients
  • 1 pound frozen calamari tubes thawed
  • Kosher salt
  • ½ cup milk or buttermilk
  • 1 ½ cup all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup cornstarch
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¾ teaspoon dry oregano
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • Grapeseed, canola, or vegetable oil as needed
  • 2 lemons cut into wedges to drizzle while eating
  • Tartar sauce and/or cocktail sauce for dipping

Instructions
  1. Unless you bought calamari rings, start by cutting the cleaned tubes into 3/4-inch thick rings.
  2. Soak in salted milk or buttermilk: In a medium bowl, stir 1 teaspoon of kosher salt in 1/2 cup of milk. Add the squid rings and toss. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.Slice the calamari tubes into ¾-inch thick rings.
  3. In a medium bowl, stir 1 teaspoon kosher salt in ½ cup milk.
  4. Add the calamari rings to the milk mixture and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  5. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, oregano, black pepper, and cayenne (make sure the mixture is well combined).
  6. Prepare a large colander and set it on top of a large bowl. Using a pair of tongs, take a portion of the calamari rings (about ½ of them) shake off excess milk and toss the calamari in the flour mixture. Toss the calamari to coat evenly. Put the coated calamari in the colander. Repeat with the rest of the calamari.
  7. Turn your oven on a low 150 degrees F. Prepare a large sheet pan and set a wire rack on top. Top the wire rack with paper towel.
  8. Heat 4 inches of grape seed oil in a small cooking pot (I used a 2.5 quart pot) to somewhere between 350 and 365 degrees F. To test your oil, drop one calamari ring, many bubbles will form around it and the calamari will begin to float.
  9. Once your oil is ready, using a pair of tongs, gently add some of the calamari in and fry for about 3 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the calamari from the oil and arrange it on the paper towel on top of your prepared wire rack. Immediately season with kosher salt, then transfer to your warm oven to keep warm while you work on the rest. Repeat until you have fried all the calamari.
  10. Transfer the fried calamari to a serving plate and finish with a squeeze of lemon juice!

Notes
  • To tenderize your calamari, simply stir about 1 teaspoon of kosher salt in 1/2 cup of milk. Add your squid rings to the salted milk solution and refrigerate for 30 minutes. There are other alternatives for tenderizing squid such as soaking it in buttermilk or lemon juice.
  • Do not cut the calamari rings too thinly. I cut my squid tubes into 3/4-inch thick rings, which extends the cooking time long enough for the flour coating to brown and crisp up nicely, while making sure that the calamari is tender on the inside.
  • Soak the rings in a solution of salted milk for 30 minutes (refrigerated) before cooking. I shared this earlier, but this is the trick to tenderizing the calamari meat and it also helps tame the fishy taste.
  • For crispy fried calamari, coat the rings in a mixture of flour, cornstarch, and baking powder! You’ll get a golden-brown, crispy exterior on the tender squid rings.
  • Once coated in the flour mixture, allow the squid rings a few short minutes to sit in a colander before frying. This allows the flour to rehydrate so that the coating does not fall off the calamari when fried. This will happen naturally anyway as you wait for the oil to heat, and you will be frying the calamari in batches which will allow enough time for the coating to stick.
  • Manage the heat of your cooking oil. Heat the oil to somewhere between 350 and 365 degrees F before cooking the calamari. The more common problem with oil temperature is that it is often too low and the calamari will absorb too much of the oil and become too soggy or chewy. And if the oil is too hot, the outside will burn before the inside is cooked properly. So that is why it is important to manage the oil heat.
  • An oil thermometer is helpful here, but if you do not have a thermometer, how do you know if the oil is ready for frying? To test, drop just one calamari ring in the oil, lots of gentle bubbles should form around it immediately and the calamari and bubbles begin to float to the top.