I think I am imitating the Japanese style of preparing grilled whole squid calamari, aka Ika Maruyaki. Like many Yakiniku Houses (Japanese BBQ restaurants) advertise their teriyaki sauce, I also want to claim that mine is also an original one, but from a tiny kitchen hosted by a home cook than a professional chef.
There is no bottled teriyaki sauce in my stock because I may simply cook it up from scratch in minutes. But the prerequisite is that I have to spare some space for stocking up the bottles of the needed ingredients, namely mirin, sake and soy sauce .
They are kept however not solely for making teriyaki, I get sake for making this, soy sauce for this and this, and mirin for broth, just for an instance.
I make cuts on the squid body before grilling to shorten the broiling time. You may choose to cut it into rings only after it is grilled but that may require it to stay in the oven for a couple minutes longer.
Broiling the squid in the oven is almost effortless. The most labor-intensive task perhaps is about cleaning the squid. If this is your first time doing such, I believe a reference, which is easy-to-follow, from about.com shall be of help; and here is just a shot borrowed from their page.
- Ingredients
- 1 squid, ~230g
- Teriyaki Sauce
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- 4 tsp mirin (Japanese cooking wine)
- 2 tbsp sake
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- thickening: 1/2 tsp corn starch mixed with 2 tsp water
- Marinades for squid
- 1 tsp grated ginger
- 1/4 tsp salt
Method
- Cleaning
- Tear apart the head of squid from its body. Chop off the beak and eye portion but reserve the tentacles.
- Discard the transparent bone inside.
- To make washing the inner part easy, also cut off 2 to 3 cm length (but reserve it for grilling as well) from the base part of the body.
- Tear off the thin membrane from the body tube and tentacles.
- Wash, rinse the squid under running water until clean.
- Drain dry
- Before grilling
- Massage the squid with marinades and let it stand for about 15 minutes
- Bring about 3 to 4 cups of water in a pan to a boil (sufficient for submerging the whole squid). Briefly blanch the squid including the tentacles for 10 to 15 seconds, after which you shall find the meat contracted and the squid body turn into a relatively firmer tube. Dish up quickly in order not to over-boil it.
- Pat dry.
- Slice the body crosswise, about 1.5 cm apart, but having the cuts about halfway through so that the rings are still attached.
- Preparing teriyaki sauce
- In a saucepan, combine all ingredients (except thickening) for teriyaki sauce.
- Over low heat, simmer, and gently stir with a spatula until sugar dissolved. Then thicken with thickener and remove from heat.
- Grilling
- Preheat oven on grill to 350 degree F. Brush about half of the teriyaki sauce all over the squid.
- Lightly oil an oven-safe dish, arrange squid and tentacles on it. After grilled for 5 minutes, take out dish and glaze the squid with another layer of sauce.
- Return to oven and grill for another 5 minutes, or till done.
Dish up and serve hot.
While grilled squids in Yakiniku Houses are commonly served separately as side dishes with cold drinks or sake, let’s also make a happy deviation at home by serving them with rice or noodles. To enhance the flavor of this simple teriyaki, simply add some crashed garlic or chili powder into the sauce.
Enjoy!
- Category: Seafood .
- 38 comments
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You are good! This is like a perfect izakaya kind of dish. I also like another version of grilled squid they served in Indonesian restaurants – some kind of dark sauce over the grilled squid too but I never know what the dark sauce was.
Gorgeous! Sounds very flavorful with teriyaki sauce!
i love cooking squid – there is something so exciting about preparing it, removing the ink and the plasticy bone thing. I have never thought of serving it like this though, whole but sliced. It looks really special.
I love grilled squids! And that sauce sounds amazing!
Wow, it was done so beautifully!
Fantastic! It looks really well done!
never seen a cooked squid looked so gorgeous …. love your presentation and photography as always ๐
Very nicely served and teriyaki sauce is yum, always my favourite!
Mmmmmmm – this dish looks wonderful!!! I love squid. i don’t think I have seen squid anywhere here where I live… My mom used to cook squid dishes all the time when I was back in Korea… I miss it!
My nephew loves squid. It’s his favourite.
The squid is very meaty and juicy. Looks great in teriyaki sauce.
As you said, teriyaki sauce is very easy to make once you’ve stocked all the bottled ingredients in your pantry. The sauce is very versatile, going very well with many different kinds of meat or veggies. Yumm…
Wondering if you will consider including the English (U.S.) measurement for your recipes as well as the metric measurement.
I love squid! Your version looks great, love home made teriyaki sauce for sure!
@Wendy,
Thank you for your kind advice. Considered that I am not that good at managing numbers, I’m afraid I have to bias toward one system, and very likely in the near future as well.
I would love to try this, but honestly would not like to handle squid…can I just come over?
Squid with teriyaki sauce? I definitely sit down and join the feast.
Looks so good! I don’t mind handling squid… will like to try cooking your way. very beautiful
hi, i rarely eat japanese food but i think this is a great idea and you made your own teriyaki sauce!
The squid looks very nicely glazed with teriyaki… would love to have a few…:)
I am going to follow you on twitter so I will not miss out on your new post…
@Lisa H.
Thanks! You may also opt to get updates from my RSS Feeds, enjoy.
Gorgeous presentation! I cook teriyaki sauce form scratch too, simple and so delicious!
This is one of my husband’s favorite appetizers at Japanese restaurants! I’ve been wanting to make it at home, and now I can! Thanks for the great recipe!
That is one of the most beautiful food pictures I have ever seen! I’m sure it tastes as good as it looks.
Looks great! I was very much drawn to this post by the picture you took of the dish. Been wanting to learn to do squid and the above post is definitely very informative.
A very inspiring site you’ve created!
Really nice photos… and funy dish !
gorgeous squid photo!
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I followed the recipe step by step and it was worth doing all the work. However I should mention that it ended up a little bit chewy than I was expecting. Perhaps it was something to do with the tiny bit of belacan paste I added to the sauce. Just an old habit I got since eating squid sambal the first time – I tend to add belacan paste in nearly every seafood recipe I do come across.
@Nemesis,
Glad to hear that you find it worth doing. I don’t think your adding of belacan paste should make the squid chewier. Possible cause I guess is your squid might be thinner (even though of same weight as mine), thus it was slightly overcooked. Hope this helps and thanks for sharing your experience.
Hi
Was going to do a squid dish (inspired by your recipe above) when I was totally distracted and disrupted by a grisly find within a large squid…
See pics here: http://mumusings.blogspot.com/2011/03/home-mumusings-64-fresh-squid-how-do.html
Anyone had interesting finds while cleaning squids before? Had a good scream and then a good laugh afterwards…
@mumusings,
Although I haven’t had a similar experience as yours, when dealing with slimy things I have a habit of wearing hand gloves.
Hope that this does not put off your interests in trying the dish.
Haha… definitely going to still cook the squid. Will definitely put on gloves next time:)
I am really fighting with my self to want to taste something that looks like that and i don’t know..It looks so much like an alien…maybe in a stew or something like that.
Beautiful! The ginger comes through very gently and tastes amazing – but I found it very salty. I’m on a low salt diet, so I think I will remove the salt and just marinate in ginger next time – unless it’s essential?
I actually had this on a bed of mashed potato with fried shallots mixed into it because you can only buy squid tubes where I live, and it was very filling and tasty! Thank you so much for the recipe!
@Celeste,
Thanks for your kind feedback but sorry for my delayed response.
Instead of omitting the salt completely, perhaps you may also reduce the amount of soy sauce. I believe by adding a small pinch of sea salt will bring out the flavors of good seafood. Enjoy again!
Want to try this recipe but was just curious about the sake. Did you use cooking sake (which is quite salty) or regular drinking sake?
@Foodie Adventurer,
I used drinking sake, which is somewhat sweet.
Enjoy!
[…] Grilled Squid with Teriyaki Sauce | Hong Kong Food Blog … โ I think I am imitating the Japanese style of preparing grilled whole squid calamari, aka Ika Maruyaki. Like many Yakiniku Houses (Japanese BBQ restaurants) advertise … […]