Cuttlefish with onions and olives

Yesterday someone slapped me with a gauntlet. But I’m not one for picking it up. I’m one for turning the other one. So here you go! The other cheek. Yes, that photo is hideous. The dish in it looks hideous. Yes, I’m a champion of ugly food photos. Besides, I’ve been unmasked. They cracked the case using methods worthy of Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau :p But no, I won’t feel sorry for myself. That’s not what this is about.

Today I went shopping because I wanted to make Dad something for his name day, which was a little while ago. Truth be told, I was really hoping to get my hands on an octopus. No luck, sadly.

Why octopus? I’d never cooked one myself. Until recently it didn’t exactly bring back happy memories. Mostly it reminded me of a late-night joint in Hong Kong where I ate it at about 3 in the morning. But a really good night out changed my mind. We went to Der Elefant. Google describes the site as “Der Elefant – Kitchen – Wine Merchant”. That last bit is certainly spot on 😉 The wine flowed freely.

Back to the octopus, though. We ordered it as a starter, just to try it. By the time the waiter came to offer us dessert, all thoughts of little cakes and pavlovas had gone out of my head. I kept it short and sweet: for dessert we’ll have two orders of grilled octopus, please. Delicious! If I go back, it’ll definitely be for the octopus. What’s more, it’s 10 times better than the mains. Well, there you go.

Anyway, I couldn’t buy an octopus today (even though it’s Thursday, fresh seafood day, and the first day of spring to boot). But look, fresh cuttlefish! So I did all right in the end, because cuttlefish is much cheaper. Maybe not quite as tasty, but I could work with it.

I also bought two white wines, one of them a perfectly decent Chardonnay from Chile (so, inexpensive). And I made Dad his belated name-day dinner. He was delighted with it, which made me happy. He asked for the recipe, so he must have liked it. He even said, “I think I’ll make it” for Mum, which only goes to prove my last point, because he loves her more than anything. So this time I did the cooking, but Dad’s the one recommending it!

At a glance: 

Preparation time: 60 minutes

Serves: just right for a father and son (both grown men)

Calories: only the cuttlefish knows

Ingredients for a proper seafood dish:

• 600 grams of cuttlefish (fresh)
• 150 grams of green olives (a small bag of pitted olives)
• a bunch of fresh parsley
• two medium onions
• a tablespoon of lemon juice
• 5 cloves of garlic
• ground black pepper
• ground paprika
• about half a litre of dry white wine (plus a bottle of Chardonnay to drink with it 😉
• salt
• olive oil

Method (let’s cook that cuttlefish):

It’s a pretty simple recipe, really. I washed the cuttlefish thoroughly and patted it dry with a paper towel.

I finely diced the onions and fried them in a hot pan over a low flame (yes, a flame: we cook with gas at my parents’ place, so it’s a real flame, not induction). While the onions were cooking, I cut the cuttlefish into thin strips (about 2 centimetres).

I put the strips in a soup plate and sprinkled them with a tablespoon of lemon juice. I added pepper, finely chopped garlic and salt, and mixed it all thoroughly by hand.

Once the onions had softened (don’t let them brown), I added the cuttlefish and fried it for about 10 minutes (unfortunately it released quite a bit of water and I had to wait for it all to evaporate). Then I poured in about 300 ml of wine, turned down the heat and let it cook for about 20–25 minutes. When the wine had evaporated, I poured in the rest. I tasted the cuttlefish and realised I hadn’t salted it enough, so I added a little salt and some paprika to taste. I gave it a stir.

I finely chopped the whole bunch of parsley and added half to the cuttlefish simmering in the wine. After about 10 minutes, when the wine had reduced by almost half, I added the green olives and mixed everything well.

For about 10 minutes after that I just stirred fairly often and mostly waited for the rest of the wine to cook down and leave the cuttlefish in a thick wine and onion sauce. Once the sauce was thick enough, I served it in little bowls, sprinkled with the rest of the parsley, with white bread alongside. All done. Enjoy!