Fresh cuttlefish pre-cleaning

One of Oscar’s favourite mixes for stuffing into a brunch roll or ooping onto great crusty lumps of bread is this cuttlefish, tomato and pebrella mix.  This last is a herb found locally. Its grown-up name is Thymus Piperella, and if you search online, you might find a supplier – it has a really distinctive flavour, and although oregano could be used as an alternative, it hasn’t got the same special kick.
For the fishy part, I dragged Iaia along to the Valencia markets yesterday to help me choose the best critters and then she walked me through the recipe step by step. It’s best to buy fresh (oh-so-ugly) cuttlefish and get your friendly fishmonger to do all the cleaning for you. You will probably still have to cut off the tough wings and pull out a beak or two, but the worst part will have been dealt with by abler hands (than mine, at least). Oh, and stand back when you put the cuttlefish into the pan – it spits!

What you need:
3 medium-sized cuttlefish
a healthy kilo of pear tomatoes
2 onions
olive oil
black pepper
pebrella (thymus piperella)
dried chillies

What you do:
Chop the onions and cuttlefish into smallish pieces. Grate the tomato and put some oil in a deep pan to heat.  The cuttlefish is the first to go in as it takes quite a while to cook.  It spits horribly when it hits the oil, so be really careful!  Let it sizzle gently for about 15 minutes before adding the onion to fry and soften for another 10 minutes or so. Pour in the tomato, add some salt, the herbs and the chillies (Iaia uses a tea strainer to be able to fish them out before it gets too hot) and let everything bubble away quietly for about an hour, or until you see the tomato losing most of its wateriness and becoming thick – like a really great pasta sauce. Remember to test for flavour and remove the chillies when you notice a bit of heat.

Take off the heat and allow it to cool completely before serving. We like to leave it overnight and put spoonfuls into a crusty roll for brunch.

Serve with: Cold white wine and lots of bread.