Papi Chulo's Southern grilled calamari
The inspiration for this dish is based on a mennonite soup called somma borscht (aka summer borscht). The soup includes potatoes, farmer sausage, sour cream potatoes sorrel and dill. These are the flavours I grew up with so I wanted to translate them into something suited to Manly.
We created a dish using a sorrel vinaigrette, sour cream, crispy kipfler potatoes, grilled calamari, and grilled smoked streaky bacon in place of farmer sausage and dill.
Southern Grilled Calamari (serves 5)
5 kipfler potatoes
5 rashers of streaky bacon
2 whole southern calamari
100g sour cream
1 bunch of dill
Olive oil
Sea salt
Sorrel Vinaigrette
200g of sorrel
200ml of water
2 cloves of garlic
90ml rice vinegar
30ml olive oil
Method
For the kipfler potatoes, immerse in cold water and bring to the boil, simmer very gently until cooked. drain and allow to cool, break up potatoes into a few pieces and put in a very low oven or a warm dry place for one hour. This allows any excess moisture to dry up.
For the bacon place on a grease proof lined oven tray and blanch in an oven for 10 mins at 160 degrees. This will help the bacon to be evenly cooked and crispy coming off a wood fired grill.
For the calamari clean, remove the membrane from the outer and inner part of the cone, slice into 4 flat pieces and keep the tentacles.
For the sorrel vinaigrette, place all the ingredients in a blender and process until smooth, season to taste with a little salt and sugar.
To serve, deep fry the kipfler potato pieces until golden and crispy, season the calamari with a little salt and rub with a little olive oil, grill over a wood fire with the bacon rashers until caramelised and just cooked. Thinly slice calamari and bacon.
Spoon some sorrel vinaigrette onto a plate, dollop sour cream on top, place the cooked calamari and bacon around and finish with the potatoes, picked dill and a little olive oil.
