Secret to Perfectly Tender Squid Steaks

All right, my steak with a twist Jo. So I've got these beautiful squid tubes. The thing with squid is you've got to cook it right. Okay, so I'm going to show you a really good tip. Basically with squid the key is to either cook it fast or cook it slow. No in between. It's in the middle where you mess up squid. All the problems lie in the middle. All the problems lie in the middle. So Jo, if you want to start with the rosti for me as I score these. Now by scoring them it helps tenderize the meat as you cook it. Okay, so it's another little trick. It means as you cook it like you're helping the tendons not contract too much which will make it go really tough. You know it keeps it nice and relaxed so it makes it much more palatable when you're eating it. Keeping it whole like this and scoring it. I'm going to cook it with a weight later. Should make it really nice and tender. Just going to top it with a little bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper. It's nice to see it done differently too. You know as children we used to go to Mallorca on holiday and we always had squid rims. That's where my mind goes when I think about squid. All right, so that's done. I'm just going to set it to the side. Now key to a good rosti. Lots of different recipes, ways of doing it. Showing you my way okay. So don't come for me, this is my version. I think at least all the recipes agree on this. Get the water out. So I'm just going to string that through a dry cloth. I want to really try and extract as much of that as possible. Okay, so then what you're left with, you can feel that the consistency of the potatoes completely different once you've done that. Now for me, sometimes I put onion in this which is great, which is fine. This time I'm just going to literally season it with garlic. Yes please. Lots of salt. A bit of pepper. All right and then an egg. You're gonna want that. Oh thanks mate. You read my mind Jo. Teamwork. Teamwork my friends in the kitchen. Thank you and then I'm just using my hand just to bring this through. Some people add flour, some people add cornstarch, you know a binding agent. For me, you don't need to. As long as you take out that water, you can just keep this completely natural. All right, so our butter into the pan and then we're just gonna put our potato straight in. Oh you're doing one giant rosti. I'm doing one big rosti. It's me Jo. When do I ever do things by halves? So you just want to press that down and then just tidy it up. You can make one big one like this and then afterwards you just cut it like a cake or if you're me, you just sit there and have the whole thing. See that's already starting to come together nicely. And it's holding together. Yes, if I try and turn it now, it will fall apart. So we're just gonna give it time. We're gonna give it time Jo and we'll make the aioli to go with it. So if you cut up the lemons for me. Thank you. And then for me, a nice funky strong aioli goes so well with this squid and I'm doing a black garlic aioli. It's just delicious. It's very, very good for your cardiovascular health. I'm telling you, it does. You can get this as a supplement. Really? So here you're just putting it into your food. Yeah, it's amazing. You see, she just reaffirms what I'm already doing. I love it Jo. But no, from a chef's perspective, the flavour's great. It really does remind me almost of those sort of balsamic notes. All right, I'm just using a nice good quality mayonnaise here. So that just goes straight in and then we're just gonna blitz that together. Let's make a super quick easy sauce. All right, so that sauce is coming together. You can see now Jo, you know that's ready to flip. It moves easily in the pan and then you just do this. Oh, do a nice little flip. Gorgeous. Beautiful colour. A little bit more seasoning. We're gonna let that finish off cooking probably for about another four minutes or so and then we're gonna come back and cook the squid steaks. All right, so we're gonna finish up our rostis almost there. Got my grill pan nice and hot. We're gonna go straight in with these gorgeous squid tubes. Squared side down. Using a weight on top to help press it down to really keep that contact so we get that char, that caramelisation going on. So Jo, I've just got you some picking some nice cress. Keep going. Some nice herbs. Yeah, just for a little bit of freshness on our plate. So honestly, these cook really quick. It should be ready to flip by now. Look at that. Add a little bit more olive oil in there. Now you're talking. Oh, now I'm talking your language, right? And we're gonna put that weight back on top. I'm just gonna pull that out the pan now. That's so fun. I love doing it as one big rosti. I thought you were gonna do little individuals but that's fun. All right. Something is smelling amazing. It's the squid. It's my squid steaks. You didn't believe but now you believe. No, I have to be honest. I was thinking you were really sort of stretching the friendship by saying this is a steak. I'm gonna give it to you. When you do it like this, it's big, it's plentiful. You cook the squid till you can see it just change almost to its white. You don't have that translucent colour to it anymore. Rest it as well. You should still rest your fish like you rest your meat. I'm gonna go with two delicious steaks here. I'm not gonna be tight or stingy. And then this gorgeous rosti. All right. I'm a chef. I've changed my mind already. I'm not getting two? No, you're gonna get two. And I've changed my mind again. This is what we do. It's what we do. The dish evolves as we're plating. I'm gonna put that beautiful aioli down first. Look at that. Nice and airy. Generous. And the gorgeous colour from the black garlic. Yeah. Squid steaks on top. And then I've just got some fresh herbs here. Some chervil. A little bit of coriander. Drop of olive oil. Sprinkle of salt. Bring that together. Oh, beautiful. Like a herb salad. Exactly. A little bit of freshness. Lemon. And there's my simple steak and chips. Right? Potato rosti. Beautiful char-grilled squid. Little herb salad. Some lemon. Steak with a twist. Perfection.