Day 67 - Aqueous Scribes

Squid are horrible. They really are. Preparing them, that is - they're delicious to eat. In any normal fish, one simply cuts it open and pulls out the guts in what is a twenty second operation; in squid, you pull it's head off. Not cut: pull. In theory, all of the guts come out attached to the head, so the next job is inevitably to try and extract those parts of the squids anatomy that hadn't heard about the theory; they're all squishy and horrid, and completely unrecognisable as internal organs. My squid also had roe, which interestingly was transparent and provoked a brief discussion on whether squid roe could be eaten: I thought that it probably could and suggested that my partner try some and see what it tasted like. Unfortunately, I am partnered with a boring kill-joy who for some reason didn't want to eat raw squid eggs. Wimp.

It was explained to us at great length during the demonstration on Tuesday that one must be very careful when handling squid guts in case the ink-sack ruptures an spills ink everywhere. Happily this was not an issue for me as the stupid thing had ruptured inside the fish and dyed my hands black when I picked the squid up. Instead, I chose to rupture something infinitely worse. Squid have very large, squashy eyes and I managed to nick one of them with my knife, sending eye-liquid everywhere; it was disgusting.

As may be apparent, I am no longer enamoured of squid, although if someone else is going to be cooking then I'm very happy to eat them. I served mine chargrilled with a chilli and parsley oil which was actually quite nice, so if anyone wants to make that for me then they are very welcome.

I had another go at brioche today and I am pleased to say that they turned out well enough that one was stolen to be put into Darina's lunch-box. I am going home this weekend for my brother's wedding and I thought that it would be nice to bake him some brioche for breakfast. They really aren't a huge bother to make and the look of wonder and pathetic gratefulness that one receives when presenting someone with warm brioche for breakfast is very pleasing. An also I'd like to make my brother's day special - not that it wouldn't be anyway, but as Tesco insists on reminding us, 'every little helps'.

Most impressively of all, today I made my own chocolates. I made some little chocolate cups by spreading melted chocolate on the inside of muffin cups and then filled them with a strawberry each and some chocolate mousse. It was fiddly work, but I assure you that they were good - something to do on a rainy day, I think.

At home, no blog, etc. etc...