I woke up this morning thinking of some calamari we once had in Cotonou, Benin; a rich, thick, garlicky, tomato-ey, spicy stew. We talked about it for days! I just happened to have some calamari rings in the freezer 🙂 Perfect for this cold, rainy day.
As you like, you can serve this stew on top of rice but we were satisfied with a fresh, crispy baguette.
Calamari Stew
1 lb calamari
1 tbsp ras el hanout
1 onion, chopped
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup wine
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 tsp piment d’Espelette
Salt and pepper
1 bay leaf
Coriander leaves
Mix the calamari with the ras hanout and set aside. Saute the onion, garlic, bell pepper and shallots in the olive oil until very soft, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and reduce the liquid to half. Add the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, piment, salt, pepper, bay leaf, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the calamari and continue to simmer for an hour and 15 minutes, until very tender. Sprinkle with the coriander leaves and serve with a fresh baguette.
Wine suggestion: Beaujolais Village
I love those rich calamari stews – excellent
Thank you Roger.
oh i love that close up shot of the bubbly warm calamari goodness.. tasty.. c
Garlicky c 🙂
looks delicious.. it puts fried calamari to shame.
Thank you.
What a perfect cold weather stew! I’ll definitely be making this for dinner!
Gorgeous. I always like seeing new ways to cook calamari. It’s a Christmas Eve tradition in our house to have it and some other seafood dishes.
I am hungry as I read this. Glorious looking photos and so timely too. Today is the first really cold day here in Dublin and the thoughts of a warming stew are making me even hungrier. Off to the kitchen…..
Conor
Perfect use for the calamari I have in the freezer. Thanks for the idea! I’ll let you know how it comes out.
Cool!
Sounds like a small portion would be a good way to start the Christmas eve feasting.
Or a large portion.
Love the beautiful pictures on your blog! You should use one of the good ones for your header instead of that really dark/blurry one :/ Just saying! Can’t wait to try your Chorizo Shrimp recipe!
i ove calamari in everything, enough said 🙂
Me too
I haven’t come across piment d’Espelette before, I presume it gives the dish a particular flavour, if I can’t get hold of it what would be a good substitute?
Hi. Hot paprika.
Thanks 🙂
This sounds and looks wonderful – a spicier variation on the squid dishes we have here. I’m definitely going to try this!
Great post, had to try this, with a bit of culinary license: no ras el hanout on hand but I did have some 5-spice powder (bit warmer than ras probably) and instead of the piment, its southern neighbor pimentón de la Vera. Very good! Next time with more prep time available I’ll grind up a batch of ras el hanout.
The 5 spice powder sounds good. Maybe I’ll try that next time 🙂