Prawn and Chicken Stuffed Calamari - Thai Style

amanda l b's Note:

This stunning dish comes from Melbourne's wonderful Royal Thai restaurant Palm Sugar and was published in the Age newspaper some time ago. It looks impressive and is highlighted by the tasty chilli capsicum sauce.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 calamari , tube cleaned make sure the tube isn't too thick and aim for one that has consistent thickness (note I recently used 6 baby calamari instead of 1 big tube and that worked really well)
• ½ cup minced prawns
• ½ cup minced chicken
• 1 garlic clove , finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce (optional)
• frypowder (available from Asian groceries)
• ¼ cup oil , enough to shallow fry
• ½ red capsicum , finely diced
• 1 garlic clove , finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 2 fresh chili peppers , finely sliced to taste
• ¼ cup coriander leaves (to garnish)

Directions:

1. Calamari:.
2. Mix the prawn chicken and garlic together. Stuff the calamari with the mixture until full, but taking care not to ‘over-stuff’ as the calamari will expand when cooked. Secure the open end of the calamari with toothpick/s.
3. In a steamer, steam the calamari for about 25- 30 minutes ( note: if using the baby calamari tubes, 10 minutes is sufficient). Use this opportunity to make sauce.
4. When the steaming is completed, roll the calamari tube in a shallow dish containing the fry powder. Once coated, remove the calamari tube and add water to the fry powder to make a paste as per the packets instructions. (note – it works best if thickish – if too runny, the paste will not adhere to the tube well).
5. Heat oil is a wok so that it is just starting to smoke. Add calamari tube and fry quickly on all sides – the coating should be a light, crisp batter.
6. Remove calamari from oil, and cut into slices/discs. Place the discs on a plate, pour/drizzle sauce over the top and sprinkle coriander leaves over the dish.
7. Sauce: *(this is also a good dipping sauce for rice paper rolls, wontons etc).
8. Add oil to small saucepan (note: I use spray oil) and sauté capsicum, garlic and chilli until the capsicum is soft.
9. Add the fish sauce, vinegar and sugar to the saucepan. Cook until sauce starts to thicken, being careful not to burn.

Reviews

[Chef #vt4me]

Made this exactly as written except I used bread crumbs (which you could consider the coating and frying an optional step). Very easy to make and fantastic flavor!!! The sauce is teriffic also. If you stuff this by hand wet your hands first, even easier is to put stuffing in a plastic bag and cut the end (like a pastry bag). I did make this without the frying/coating step and loved it. Wonderful!

[soursugar]

Awesome. This was my first time cooking with squid. I bought 4 of what I thought were medium size but 3 of them split while I was steaming them so I must have over stuffed them. No matter though just breaded them up anyway (I used panko and followed the instruction on the box) and you couldn't really tell. Will definitely make again and again.