Sopa de Calamares al Laurel
This week we have a warming but light easy Spanish recipe for you – Sopa de Calamares al laurel (squid and bay leaf soup). Before I moved to Spain, I had only ever had calamari grilled and fried… be that deep-fried in batter (sacrilege!) or whizzed on a plancha. Of course now we cook it in a multitude of ways… but recently I discovered the joy of cooking it slowly – and it’s wonderful! If you like calamares but are worried about it being chewy when cooking it yourself – then this is the recipe for you. It is seriously easy… so have a go and let us know how you get on.
Ingredients (Serves 4 – or 2 if you are as greedy as I am)
- 1 kilo of calamari. If fresh, you need to clean and slice into rings… but it is also just as easy to keep a bag of frozen calamari rings in the freezer and defrost them under cold running water when needed.
- 1 large onion, sliced or chopped very finely
- 400g tin of chopped tomatoes – or 2 to 3 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 3 to 4 cloves of garlic (I use 6… but I do love my garlic!)
- 4 to 6 laurel leaves (dependant upon size). These are “bay” leaves if you can’t find laurel
- Pinch of saffron if you can get it – but don’t panic if not
- Black pepper and smoked paprika if you like
- Bottle of dry white wine – that’s a glass for the recipe, and the rest for the chef!
- Olive oil for shallow frying
Method
- Drizzle a little olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and throw the onion in. Sweat in gently for a few minutes until it is translucent
- Now toss in your garlic
- Chuck in the laurel leaves (and saffron if you have it)
- Keep cooking and stirring until the onions are soft
- Now chuck in the calamari and tomatoes
- Turn up the heat a little and keep stirring for around 5 minutes until the calamari is fairly firm. Don’t panic – it won’t be rubbery when it’s finished.
- Now pour in that glass of wine if you have any left… or open another bottle if not… and 2 to 3 glasses of water, depending on how much liquid you’d like with your soup
- Pop a lid on the top of the saucepan… turn the heat really really low and ignore it for about 3/4 of an hour
- It is done when the calamari is tender to the bite.
- Serve hot with a spinkle of freshly cracked black pepper and/or a pinch or two of pimenton on top
You can serve it with plenty of crusty bread of you like… or some thin lightly toasted bread. I like to very finely slice a fresh red chilli – seeds an’ all… and sprinkle a little of that on top when serving… but then Alan and I love our spicy food.
Lovely lovely!
Do you have a Spanish recipe that you would like us to find? Then drop us an email and consider it done.
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Elle, along with Alan, is the owner of Spain Buddy and the busy web design business – Spain Web Design by Gandy-Draper.
Born a “Norverner”, she then spent most of her life “Dann Saff” before moving to Spain in 2006. Elle’s loves are Alan, the internet, dogs, good food, and dry white wine – although not necessarily in that order.
