[VIDEO] Croatian Recipes: Squid Stuffed with Vegetables & Pancetta

Croatia Week have teamed up with Fini Recepti to bring you your favourite Croatian recipes…

Croatian TV chef Almo Čatlak this year completed 10 years of his cooking show ‘TV-kuhanja’ (TV-cooking). Čatlak’s show, which shows viewers how to prepare a meal from start to finish in a 3-4 minute clip, was broadcast on Croatian TV for the past decade. In that period Čatlak has produced over 2,000 videos.

Croatia Week has teamed up with the crew at Fini Recepti to bring you those recipes in English. We will feature the recipes, everything from simple, quick everyday meals, to complicated festive delicacies, cakes and jams, twice weekly on our site.

Today:

Squid stuffed with vegetables & pancetta

Squid contains a low percentage of saturated fats and sodium, but are high in cholesterol. What can you do when they are so nice to eat. There are a number of ways to cook squid and if you love them stuffed check out this recipe.

   Ingredients you will need (to serve 4)

• Squid – 8 larger, cleaned
• Fennel – 100 g
• Carrots – 80 g
• Onion – 1/2
• Garlic – 3 cloves
• Toast Bread – 2
• Pancetta – 50 g
• Corn (can)- 80g
• Thyme – 1/2 spoon (dried)
• Rosemary – 1 branch (fresh)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

  Instructions:

•  Grate the carrot, remove the crust from the bread and chop the soft, white part into cubes. Next finely chop the onion, pancetta, fennel and squid arms.
• Heat up 2-3 spoons of olive oil in a pan and add the chopped onion, pancetta, fennel, carrot, crushed garlic, thyme and squid arms. Add salt and stir. Add the rosemary and fry on a low heat.
• After 4-5 minutes take out the rosemary branch and put the rest into a separate bowl.
• Add the canned corn and chopped bread and a bit of olive oil, pepper and mix well.
• Using this mixture you stuff the squids, but not completely as the squids will shrink during the cooking process. Close with toothpicks.
• Place the stuffed squids in a slightly greased pan and fry for 5-6 minutes, turn the squids and cook for the same time on the other side.
• The stuffed squids are now ready. Drizzle with olive oil and serve. Dobar Tek!

  Check the original recipe (in Croatian) here.

  Previous recipes in English:

  Wine Goulash with Oyster Mushrooms
  Fritule s jabukama (small donuts with apple)