Barbecued squid with a salad of fregola, grilled vegetables and basil, potatoes and fennel in a bag. Photograph: Jason Lowe for the Guardian
This humble cephalopod takes happily to the barbecue: its pearly white flesh charring perfectly to become an ideal vehicle for a piquant dressing. Serve with grilled veg salad and potatoes and fennel en papillote. Who needs hotdogs?I spent the first week of August staying, with our three children, in a tiny cottage near Polegate in Sussex " the mobility scooter capital of the South East, incidentally. With no proper cooking equipment to play with, I rustled up every lunch and dinner on a barbecue, like some kind of suburban Bear Grylls.First there were sausages. So many sausages that I became unreasonably fascinated by the way bubbles of steam form under the skin and skid upwards through the curls of mince, before coalescing in elongated pockets on top.Then there was steak, of course (of which more next week); pink fir apple potatoes from the garden, sliced into lozenges and lightly coated with oil; leeks slit down the middle and dressed in mustard; the last of the broad beans cooked in their pods and then popped out like edamame between the lips; and an ox tongue, served with a robust salsa verde of garden parsley, sage and red wine vinegar.
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But the biggest hit of all was the squid. They are strange beasts, these prehistoric cephalopods with their three green hearts, jet propulsion, and colour-shifting ways. They also happen to be delicious cooked simply over an open fire, and since there is currently an over-abundance of squid " perhaps due to the overfishing of their predators " you can eat them with a clear conscience. Even better than sausages.
