I like squid, I like whipped cream, and I like strawberries, put them together and how could you not have a winner on your hands.  Easy, my brain tells me that one of these things is not like the other.  Let me back up a little first, I have recently been reading Morimoto: The New Art of [...]]]>

 I like squid, I like whipped cream, and I like strawberries, put them together and how could you not have a winner on your hands.  Easy, my brain tells me that one of these things is not like the other.  Let me back up a little first, I have recently been reading Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking and in it chef Morimoto (one of my culinary heroes) details the recipe for squid strawberry ice candy.  This sounds interesting I thought, or maybe it was just an excuse to purchase a new gadget (more on this later).  The concept is simple, puree some squid and simple syrup together, load it into a whipped cream maker, surround a strawberry with squid foam and freeze it.  Now here is where it gets difficult, eating it, which goes like this.  Num, Num, Num, mmmm this is sweet and velvety like a frozen whipped cream, oh is that strawberry I taste, how delicio… OH GOD, mouth to brain, come in brain, is that squid?  That’s not right is it?  Brain to mouth, it is squid, how odd someone has gotten squid in my frozen dessert, and this is where your tasting ends.  Sweet and strawberry are but distant memories in your mouth and the taste of squid is moving in.  I do have to say the flavour is not bad, it’s just odd, like wearing a winter jacket with shorts.  Maybe my palate is just to western for such seafood desserts or just maybe squid plus whipped cream maker plus strawberry really does equal frowny face.  Hit the link for what Katt has to say.

Katt says:  OK, for almost four years I’ve been a faithful sous chef for Brian.  I’ve added many things against my better judgement to his creations, but this one… This HAS to be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.  I figured we were going to have a squid (he needed the ink for another dish), I had been eyeing a whip cream maker for quite some time and it gave us an excuse to go to Sur La Table so game on! At the Asian grocery we only could find cleaned squid, so the ‘hey we are saving money’ plan was moot, but I know that once Brian has a plan in action its going to happen.  So about a hundred dollars later we are in for the greatest  taste bud challenge of all time.

There was very little about this recipe that read wrong.  He was making a mixture to foam of egg whites and sugar, no big deal.  Then, there it was… drum roll… the addition of the pureed body of a squid (skin off to make it really white because aesthetics count).  This stuff was so gnarly! It looked like milk with an odd tapioca texture that smelled of sweet fish.  Oh the horror.  I really wanted to taste it but Brian made me promise not to.  At this point I’m really getting worried for my new whip cream maker, it was so shiny, it really did deserve its maiden voyage to be a beautiful amaretto cream, but no.  As I poured the stuff into my brushed aluminum iSi canister it would burp as the squid mix would go ‘lump lump’ in.  I really should have seen this as a sign.

We decided the best way to encase the strawberries was to do a half fill into an ice tray and then strawberry then cover it with more of the foam.  In this case I have to use the word ‘foam’ really loosely, it was more like fluffy crude oil. Then they just got popped into the freezer to firm up.

We decided we couldn’t  wait.  So open mouth and insert food. Oh god! ABORT ABORT!!! The first flavor I got was sweetened Barbie doll.  The second, mmm, strawberry.  The third, fish, not a little fish, but a ton of fishy flavor.  Needless to say, we have decided not to save the leftovers.