Instead of the usual beef or pork dinner meals, I decided to make an appetizing seafood dish. I love eating calamari squid so I used that as my main ingredient. Usually, I only cook the squid tubes and tentacles to make a tasty dish like a calamari salad which is one of my favorites. But recently, I tried cooking with a calamari steak and was blown away by how good it tasted. I ended up cooking a delicious serving of fried calamari steak with lemon caper sauce to drizzle all over the crispy yet tender squid meat.
Don’t confuse this dish with the popular deep fried calamari rings. This calamari steak recipe uses the body of a large squid to make a savory seafood dish which you can pair with lemon wedges or tartar sauce. It was so good and tasty that I made some more of this main dish to share with some of my relatives.
For this calamari steak recipe, the ingredients are really simple. Make sure that you buy good quality calamari steaks that are white, tender, and whole. These are sold in the seafood or frozen section of your local grocery store. Or, you can also go to the nearest fish market to easily get a frozen calamari steak. If you’re planning to buy frozen ones, then I recommend that you thaw it overnight in the refrigerator before cooking it.
Once you have your calamari steaks defrosted, then it’s time to dredge them for a tender squid steak. I combined Parmesan cheese, flour, and pepper in a shallow bowl then lightly beat eggs in a separate bowl. Make sure that you coat each calamari steaks properly with the mixtures so it turns out crispy and delicious.
Cooking them was the easy part. I used a large cast iron skillet so it cooks evenly. Other people would use a grill pan to make grilled calamari steaks. It’s also another recipe variation you can try, if you prefer those tasty diamond grilled marks on your calamari squid. For this recipe, however, I decided to keep it simple and delicious by cooking it on a skillet. I personally prefer the skillet method, especially when I add in the lemon caper sauce.
I made the sauce using the same pan and mixed in butter, lemon juice, and capers. The leftover fat from the skillet combined with the added ingredients gives the sauce that delicious tangy and savory taste. I drizzled the sauce over the calamari steaks and it was really delightful to eat.
