Quick Calamari with Garlic Mayonaise

I was afraid of this recipe. I don't know why but I was. I wasn't sure Metro would have squid. I wasn't sure I'd get the frying right. And I was afraid that I would somehow burn my face off when cooking this. But my fear was all for naught. This actually turned out pretty good.

Calamari is such a tricky food to cook. You don't want to under cook it - for obvious reasons. And if you over cook it, it gets all rubbery and gross. We've all had the rubbery restuarant calamari. But when calamari is done right it is delicious. And this one turned out on the side of delicious.

I bought my squid rings from the seafood freezer section of Metro. It was pre-cut and only 3.99. I was impressed with that, I was expecting something much more gross and expensive. I had to let it fully thaw because you really don't want even a microbead of water in your hot oil. So I rinsed it in cold water to be sure to have every little bit of frozen out of it. Then I towelled the rings dry and coated them in Nigella's special mix. From here it was just a matter of getting the cooking right.

Now like I said before I was having visions of me burning the house down and worse still burning my face off. I'm not sure why - I've cooked with oil many times before..but I was just spooked about this one today. So I put on my apron got out a metal lid (incase sudden grease fire broke out) and nervously put in one little ring to test the oil. It sizzled and fizzed but nothing started burning and my face was unharmed. So I put in a few more rings. This time I made sure I read 3 times how long Nigella said to fry these. And I quote "A couple of minutes per batch is all you should need." Okay...Thanks for nothing. But I decided that with my batches being about 5 -7 rings I would cook them for 1:30 - 2:00 minutes. This did the trick. I used a metal slotted spoon to put them in and take them out and this worked perfectly. I was able to stay back an arms length and go over what I remembered to do in the event of a grease fire over and over in my head. Husband lazed on the couch (which looks into the kitchen) while I did this - so I tried to act non-chalant while all these images of burning fire and destruction ran through my head. I didn't want him to know I was secretly afraid of burning my face off while doing this because then he would act like he's superior to me in the kitchen - which is something I cannot stand. Mr. I Used To Work At New York Fries goes around spouting his expertise of cooking with oil. Honestly you'd think he was the inventor of deep frying sometimes. Anytime he senses an insecurity with me in the kitchen he pounces on it and talks in an unidentified accent about how much better of a cook he is than me. I know he's playing around and having a round of cat and mouse with me but I can't stand it even knowing this. Mostly because when we first moved in together he once asked me how to boil water. Now I ask you - if someone who once asked you how to boil water (btw he fully denies this ever happened) started strutting around like a peacock whenever you were a little unsure of something wouldn't it just make your blood boil? I thought so. So now you see why I couldn't share this movie reel of nightmares in my head. So I kept that firmly in the back of my mind and acted like frying this squid was my #1 favourite thing to do.

Anyhow, once this was all done I breathed a massive sigh of relief seeing as I was unscarred and alive. And set to making the garlic mayonaise. Pretty easy - you add garlic to some mayonaise. I then plated the food and took it to the livingroom for us to snack on. We ate this in less than 5 mintes. So yeah, it was good. We sucked it up like a couple of Dysons. I will totally make this again - but maybe not for a while because I'm still getting over the stress of the deepfrying.