Cuttlefish with Peas & Potatoes

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Believe it or not, so far I’ve managed to stick to my new year’s resolution of cooking a new, never-made-before dish per week (aka CNNMBDPW Project) – I’m only running slightly behind with the whole blogging the recipe side of things, but please bear with me.

For week III, I cooked one of my old time favourites: cuttlefish with peas and potatoes. I can’t really say this is a new dish to me – having the recipe been in my family for 3 generations now, but I had never cooked it myself before. My grandma used to make it. It was one of the amazing dishes she would cook for us, always downplaying how great a cook she was. And it’s one of the dishes we keep having as a family every now and then, now that she’s no longer with us. It’s a way to remember her, to honour her memory and her talent as a cook.

When I asked the recipe to my parents, though, they gave me two slightly different versions (the both of them of course assuring “that’s how nonna Rina used to make it”). Funny thing is, they’re probably both right. As every great cook, nonna didn’t cook following a recipe, her cooking was all instinct and available ingredients, so it’s more than likely that she made this recipe in different ways.

Since I couldn’t recall how nonna used to make it and thus couldn’t pick between one version or the other, I decided to get out of the impasse by merging the two versions together, taking from each what I thought would work best (and hoping grandma wouldn’t mind my “playing” with one of her classics).

Here is how I did it.

Cuttlefish with Peas & Potatoes

Prep time 15 mins, cook 60/70 mins. Serves 4.

Ingredients:

2/3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
A small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped, stalks sliced
800g of cuttlefish, cleaned and sliced
Half a glass of white wine
2/3 potatoes, sliced
350ml of vegetable stock
250g of tomato sauce
400g of frozen peas (= half the quantity of the cuttlefish)

Method:

In a large saucepan gently fry the garlic in the olive oil with the parsley. Add the cuttlefish and stir for few minutes. Once the water released by the cuttlefish has evaporated, add the white wine and keep stirring. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add the potato slices. Let them fry for a few minutes, then pour in the stock, just enough to cover everything. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, with the lid on.
Add the tomato sauce and simmer for other 15 minutes with the lid on, stirring frequently.
Add the defrosted peas and simmer for other 10 minutes. Then let it simmer without the lid until both vegetables and cuttlefish are tender and the sauce thickens.
Serve hot with a few slices of toasted bread.

Buon appetito!

Cuttlefish with Peas & Potatoes