Back in the summer in Ahakista we went for lunch on a very wet day to The Good Things Cafe. I ate a stew of squid.

I have been meaning to make something like it at home and I got round to doing it last Sunday afternoon and I ate it this evening.

We spent the early part of the day walking round West Kirby for the best part of two hours including a full circle around The Marine Lake and a visit to the very excellent Ship in a Bottle where I was able to but seven bottles of beer, including a bottle of God Lager, for the price of one and a half bottles of God Lager in Stockholm.

Back home I made the squid stew.  The recipe comes from a book called New Tapas  and is one that I have made before although not for a few years. It is a full expression of the maxim that squid needs to be cooked either very quickly or very slowly. Anything in-between and you end up with a piece of tough rubber to chew on.

I had bought one largish squid from Wards on Saturday morning. I cleaned it myself and then chopped it up into thin rings. These were tipped into a pan with hot olive oil. I gave them a stir and then chopped up an onion and some garlic and stirred them in as well. After giving them time to sizzle and spit I poured in a good couple of glasses of red wine, a tin of tomatoes, added a bay leaf and then left it for the slow cooking to do its bit for two hours.

It came out a deep dark stew that filled the mouth with umani type flavour just like the one I had in the summer.