A little victory at our place tonight.

Little miss looked at new food and voluntarily said ‘I’ll try it’

… and she did AND she enjoyed it!!!

In fact, she enjoyed it so much, she ate her brother’s left overs!!!! Unheard of!!! Doing a little dance of joy 🙂

Will loves calamari, so when we saw it on sale at the markets a while ago we bought it but I hadn’t got around to cooking it yet because I hadn’t got my head around a non dairy option for soaking the uncooked squid … then today I had a brainwave ….

The reason that people normally soak calamari in milk is for the lactic acid in the milk to soften the collagen fibres in the squid. So I decided to try the buttermilk that I make to use in scones and banana bread etc. Success!

‘Buttermilk’:

• 1 cup oat/rice/soy milk
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Whisk together very quickly until frothy (Speed 4, 12 seconds).

Place calamari into the buttermilk, cover and place in the fridge for 4 hours – overnight.

• calamari, enough for your family, cut into rings
• 8 tbsp aquafaba (liquid drained from a can of chick peas)
• 1 cup GF flour mix (I used White Wings)
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 cup rice bran oil, or similar, to cook.
• extra salt to season after cooking

Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan to a very hot heat.

Drain and rinse the calamari (drain well as excess moisture will make the breading soggy).

Combine the flour, garlic salt and pepper and set aside.

Whisk the aquafaba until frothy (Speed 4, 15 seconds with the butterfly attachment).

Drop the rings into the aquafaba mix, allow to mostly drain then place into the flour mix and coat well.

Drop a few rings at a time into the hot oil, do not overcrowd the pan, an allow to cook for about 1 minute, and until lightly golden.

Use a slotted spoon or a meal spider to remove the rings and place on a draining rack or paper towel to remove excess oil.

Sprinkle with extra salt and serve immediately.

…. we were supposed to eat ours with oven baked sweet potato fries, but I dislocated the middle knuckle on my right hand and wasn’t up to the cutting …. so our local fish and chip shop chips came in handy 😉

Enjoy 🙂