My first ever confit squid in life, learned from Ixta Belfrage. It might not be 100% successful, but I definitely love the confit oil and roasted aubergine.
What is Confit?
From what I understand on the Internet, ‘Confit’ is derived from French, pronounced Con-Fee. Literally it means to preserve. When you rub salt to preserve food, it’s also confit. And probably the most popular dish of it is Duck Confit. Nowadays, ‘Confit’ mostly refers to a cooking technique – slowly cooking the food which is submerged in a low-temperature fat for hours. Read more details in this blog post.
In this recipe, since the squid is cut into rings, it doesn’t require long hours to cook, but 40 minutes is enough.
What Did I Change?
Since I couldn’t get some ingredients on hand, I made changes as follows:
- Basil ➞ Parsley. I still couldn’t believe there were all the other herbs on the shelf but not a single pack of basil.
- Squid without tentacles. I can buy frozen raw squid tubes from M&S, but not with tentacles. Maybe next time I should use more squid.
- Cherry tomatoes ➞ tomato passata. I probably shouldn’t have made this change as passata separates from oil. This made the confit oil, um…complicated.
- Calabrian chilli paste and chilli flakes ➞ chilli powder. That’s all I got. I do think the chilli paste would have merged into the confit oil nicely.
Ingredients
Serves 2
- 1 aubergine, cut into chunks
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ¼ tsp salt
- 160 g tortiglioni
- 2 tbsp of pasta water reserved
- a small handful of parsley, chopped
- black pepper
For the Confit Squid
- 2 frozen raw squid tubes, thawed
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- a large handful of parsley
- 100 ml olive oil
- ½ tbsp tomato puree
- 70 g tomato passata
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 ½ tbsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp salt
How to Make Confit Squid with Roasted Aubergine (and Tortiglioni)
- Preheat the oven to 210ºC (fan mode).
- First, prepare the confit squid. Cut the squid tubes into 2 cm thick rings, then put them into a saucepan together with all the other ingredients. Stir well. Heat at the lowest possible flame for 40 minutes. In between, it may start to bubble, meaning it’s too hot. If it happens, turn off the heat for a few minutes, then put it on again.
- While the squid is cooking, prepare the roast aubergine. Place the aubergine in a bowl and toss with oil and salt. Roast them in the oven for 25 minutes. Stir halfway.
- When the aubergine is halfway done, bring a pot of salted water to boil and cook the tortiglioni according to the packet’s instructions.
- Place the confit squid, 80g of the confit oil and roasted aubergine in a large saucepan (still off the heat). Halve the tomato and grate it with the large holes of a grate boxer. Then stir it to the saucepan.
- When the tortiglioni is ready, turn on the heat of the saucepan to medium-high. Stir in the pasta and pasta water, toss well. After a minute or so, the sauce should turn thicker. Twist in a very generous amount of black pepper, and sprinkle in the chopped parsley. Serve immediately.
