Jumbo Squid: A "How To" / aka Breaking down Squid

**Medium Difficulty**

Breaking down an entire Jumbo Squid can be intimidating if you don’t know how to do it. However, I always believe it’s a good experience for anyone to break down their own meat regardless if it’s Fish or poultry. There is such a large disconnect from food in our society. People just don’t know how food goes from the farm or the sea to our plates. So, what better way is there to respect your food and everything involved into preparing it, than learning how to do it yourself?

Here’s a Step by Step Tutorial of how to break down Squid. Jumbo Squid as shown here, has a very similar anatomy as smaller squid, so once you get the hang of this tutorial, you’ll be able to break down any size squid for delicious Calamari.
Warning: Tutorial is not for those who are squeamish.

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Step One: Rinse and Scrub the Squid

When you buy Jumbo Squid at your local Fish Market, you can be sure it’ll cost you under ten dollars for a pretty decent sized fish. That’s really cheap considering you pay ten dollars for just six rings of Calamari at the restaurants. Buying your own Squid fresh at the Fish Market, you’ll get five times the weight or more for the same price or cheaper! It just involves some work to prepare it the way Restaurants do.

The First step is to rinse off your Squid and Scrub away any sliminess left over from the Fish Market. Take the Jumbo Squid and place it under cold running water. You can use a strong paper towel to help you scrub if you don’t like using your hands. Once cleaned of its natural slime, pat the Squid dry with some more paper towels and set on your cutting board. Be sure to have more paper towels ready, because the next part can get messy.

XoXo | On to Step 2

Fried Jumbo Calamari Tempura Recipe, Click here.