Squid Milanese

Name: Squid Milanese
Yield: serves 4
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil; 3 tablespoons unsalted butter; 8 large calamari, bodies split open so they are flat (freeze the tentacles for another meal); 1 cup dry bread crumbs; 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano; 2 tablespoons drained tiny capers in brine; Juice of 1/2 lemon

December 14, 2011

I have had squid prepared many ways, but never in a Milanese cutlet style until Tanya and I encountered this dish on our trip to San Diego when we went to Anthony’s Fish Grotto. The calamari cutlet was a thick slab, like a veal cutlet, quite different in size from the smaller version of calamari I am accustomed to cooking on the East Coast, and yet very tender. This popular calamari may be up to 2 feet in length; the giant squid can get to approximately 43 feet; in 2003, a colossal species of squid was discovered that can be upward of 46 feet. I’m not sure which calamari was used for my Milanese at Anthony’s, but it was very good; I tested the recipe with the traditional-sized calamari, and it worked deliciously.

Recipe notes

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