Squid and potato, lightly simmered イカとじゃがいもの軽い煮込み

I found two packages of frozen squid in our freezer.  I got them from “Vital Choice” when we got frozen Pacific oysters. I did not have a chance to use them until now. These were quite good, much better than previously-frozen-and-thawed cleaned squid we used to get from our regular grocery  store. After thawing, I washed them in cold running water. They were cleaned including bodies and tentacles. No fishy smell and the body tubes were nicely intact. I have made quite a few dishes using squid.  Since I am running out of new dishes, I have been on the look-out for any new recipes. I found this recipe in the digital edition of one of the Japanese newspaper sites. This was a bit unusual in that no traditional Japanese seasonings (soy sauce, ginger, etc) were used. The original recipe calls for “parsley” sauce (mixture of chopped parsley, olive oil and salt). Since I did not have fresh parsley, I had to improvise. Despite that, this dish was really good.  The evening I made this dish, we had it warm (picture below).

Next day, I served this cold. It tasted equally good cold. We may even prefer to serve this cold especially in summer.

Ingredients:
170g cleaned and frozen squid and tentacles, thawed* (I used half of a12oz package), washed and the body cut into tubes, and tentacles cut into bite sized pieces
2 small potatoes (I used red potato), skinned and cut into 1/4 slices
150 ml water
1 tbs olive oil
salt to taste
1 tb white wine
1/2 garlic clove

For parsley sauce
5 sprigs of fresh parsley finely chopped (Since I did not have fresh parsley, I used combination of finely chopped scallion and Jalapeno pepper)
2-3 tbs olive oil
1 pinch salt

*The original recipe calls for a one large squid.

Directions:
Sprinkle the white wine on the squid. 
Add the water, olive oil, the garlic and the potato in a pot. After it reaches boiling reduce the heat and cook 15-20 minutes with the lid askew. When the potato is cooked, season it with salt.
Add the squid and cook for 30 minutes stirring. Then cut off the heat and let it steep to finish cooking.
Serve with the potato on the bottom top with dollops of the sauce.

Although I could not make the parsley sauce, this was a very refreshing and nice dish. Actually the combination scallion and jalapeño may have been more flavorful than a parsley sauce. The squid was tender since it was cooked for a short time. It was sort of Western-style and perfect for hot summer when served cold.