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Caldierada de Lulas à Madeirense
Nb persons: 6
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| Despite Portugal's leading role in the early spice trade, Portuguese food in general is not highly seasoned like that of their neighbors to the east. While fiery hot piri-piri sauce is a widely used condiment, most dishes themselves avoid highly pronounced spicy flavors. When you do find dishes that include stronger spices, you'll find that the quantities used serve purely to enhance the flavors of the vegetables or meats rather than to define the dish as one made with a particular spice. In this famous squid based stew from Madeira, curry powder and ground ginger are used in such a way that it's hard to pick out that they are there but it would be readily apparent if they were not. Around here in New England it's fairly easy to come across squid in any market. It comes frozen whole in 3 pound packages for something like four bucks, so this dish can actually be pretty inexpensive to make. If you don't know how or don't want to deal with cleaning squid (which, to be honest, is a slimy and tedious process), you can often find pre-cleaned squid tubes. Don't worry about whether the squid is fresh or frozen. In this dish it would be very hard to tell the difference. Ingredients | |
| 2 pounds | small squid, cleaned, with tubes sliced into 1/4 inch rings |
| 2 large | Yellow onions, sliced thinly (about 3 to 4 cups) |
| 2 | Green bell peppers, sliced thinly (about 2 cups) |
| 2 cloves | garlic, minced, (about 1-1/2 tablespoons) |
| 2 Large | Red Bliss or Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces (about 2 cups) |
| 2 large | very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced or 1 14.5 oz. cans of diced tomato (if it's not August and the tomatoes aren't from your garden or the farm stand, use the canned) |
| 3/4 teaspoon | curry powder |
| 1/2 teaspoon | dry ground ginger, (don't substitute fresh ginger, it's not the same thing) |
| 2 large | whole bay leaves |
| 1/4 cup | olive oil |
| 1 cup | dry white wine |
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Chopped parsley or cilantro for garnish
Directions
In a large (10 quarts or larger) dutch oven or stock pot, add the olive oil and set the burner under the pot to medium high. Let the pot heat for about three minutes or until the oil just begins to emit faint wisps of smoke.
Add the bay leaf and cook until they become fragrant and just begin to turn brown.
Add the onions, peppers and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and peppers soften, but have not begun to brown—about five minutes.
Stir in the curry and ginger powders and continue cooking until the spices become fragrant—just a minute or two more.
Add the tomatoes and wine and bring the liquid to a boil.
Reduce the heat to as low a temperature as your stove will let you go, add the squid, cover the pot, and cook for at least two hours, preferably three, and four won't hurt. Check the pot every fifteen minutes or so to be sure that the liquid isn't bubbling too rapidly (it shouldn't bubble much at all). If your lowest burner setting provides too much heat to allow for a prolonged gentle simmer, then try crumpling up some aluminum foil into a ring and using it to elevate the pot from the burner. Of course, if you have one of those $30 flame tamers, feel free to use that rather than 48 cents worth of aluminum foil. The goal here is to gently cook the squid while making sure that the liquid reduces as little as possible.
Add the potatoes and salt and pepper to your taste and continue cooking at a gentle simmer for another 45 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through to your liking. This last part is just to cook the potatoes. The rest of the Caldeirada is really already done.
To serve, ladle the Caldeirada into bowls. For color feel free to sprinkle on some chopped parsley or cilantro, and don't forget to pass around some nice crusty bread for dunking.
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