Day 11: Calamares and Sauteed Green Beans

The nice thing about living in the Philippines is that you could never run out of fresh seafood to choose from at the market. The funny thing though is that cooking seafood is more challenging to me compared to cooking meat or poultry. Probably because fish is more delicate to deal with, preparation-wise and cooking-wise. So how to hurdle the preparation? Ask the fish monger to do it for you, of course!



I asked the fish-monger to clean, skin and slice 1/2 a kilo of squid into centimeter-inch thick rings. I squeezed calamansi over the squid and seasoned it with pepper. Then I got about half a cup of flour and seasoned it with salt & pepper. I heated a pan with oil, dredged the squid rings in flour and fried the calamari till they turned golden and crisp. I laid the fried squid on a plate lined with paper towels to remove the excess oils. While the squid was still hot, I seasoned the squid again with some sea salt. This calamares goes well with a vinegar, garlic and chili pepper dip.

As for the green beans, I sliced 1/4 kilo of green beans very thiny on a diagonal, as thinly as possible. (I remember that during my childhood, my grandma would instruct the cook to use a Gillete razor blade in making this dish. It took quite a while to prepare this dish as the cook had to go over each green bean, one at a time, to make paper thin slices.) Nowadays, I just slice them with a knife and I'm no longer particular about making it the way my grandmother did. I sliced three (3) slices of bacon into small pieces and cooked them in a pan till they turned crispy and its fat, fully rendered. I removed the crispy bacon and set it aside for garnishing. I added chopped tomato, shallot and three (3) cloves of garlic to the bacon fat and sauteed them till they turned tanslucent. I then added the green beans, 1/4 cup of water, some patis and pepper to taste. Simmer the green beans till done and transfer to a serving dish. Sprinkle the bacon on top of the green beans.