Whole frozen squid?

Hi all! Where can I buy these, preferably frozen? I will be dissecting them with middle school students and need them whole. Afterwards we'll be making calamari with them! My online teacher friends say they're available at grocery stores. Anyone know where?


Thanks in advance!

Try the Marketplace on Oakton in Skokie. They carry boxes of whole frozen ones, and also very sizable fresh ones, too, which might be a real hoot to dissect.

Marketplace on Oakton

[Edit] Link to very cute Squid cartoon.
http://alanb.com/squid/squid-fs-comic.jpeg

Hee, hee, love the Farside!

Thanks for the Skokie tip. Frozen boxes are just what I want, but I live in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago and would prefer not to take a suburban trip in the next few days. I suppose I could just get on the phone and start calling...

Surely any octopus offered for sale that isn't still alive has been cleaned, that is, digestive tract removed.

Well, Mike G, never having bought an octopus, I can't speak to that. But squid are packed au naturel, full of goopy guts, with quill, beak, and beady little eyes attached. It's quite an experience to gut a kilo of thawed squid, let me tell you...

Lizamann, the Asian stores on Argyle/Broadway would be a pretty safe bet for finding frozen squid, goopy guts intact, very close to Lakeview. Start there...good luck, and have fun!

Huh, I would have thought they'd have to be, like most creatures, but maybe not. More than ever, I regret not having been able to snap a shot of the pile of fresh, cleaned octopi in the supermarket in Playa del Carmen Mexico...

I've gotten squid au naturel, and I can attest to the internal goop. But for me the most fascinating part is the clear, polyethylene-like backbone.

I almost purchased an octopus at Marketplace on Oakton last week - not sure how thoroughly cleaned it is; I'll have to get one next time & report back.

And, a final irrelevant thought ...

I live in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago and would prefer not to take a suburban trip in the next few days.

I always thought the cliché was that suburban folks were afraid to go into the big bad city. I didn't realize that cityfolk were afraid of scary places like Skokie.

Argyle - duh! Thanks again, sundevilpeg.

And nr706, you can dip that "backbone" in the squid's ink sac and write with it.



The kids love it!

And if you think I'm afraid of the suburbs, you should talk to the students. These kids DESPISE and fear the 'burbs in an unnatural way.

Mike G., we were just in Playa, but missed the octopi. Instead we saw a whole grouper carried in a 5-gallon bucket on a bike!

And lastly, the scoop on the goop:

http://giantsquid.msstate.edu/LessonLis ... ction.html

lizamann wrote:Hi all! Where can I buy these, preferably frozen?

Lizamann,

A few years ago I was on a squid salad kick, bought frozen, in 5-lb boxes, whole squid (mainly) at Viet Hoa on Argyle, though I'm guessing most any Asian grocery has them. Frozen squid should not be hard to come by, if I remember correctly even Jewel carries frozen boxes of squid.

Note: May not be 5-lb boxes of squid, might be slightly smaller.

Enjoy,
Gary

Viet Hoa
1051 W Argyle St
Chicago, IL 60640
773-334-1028

HI,

I bought on Argyle whole (baby?) octopus on Argyle within the past two years. It's an amusing display of 5-6 lined up in a foam tray, like a police line-up, then cling wrapped.

The octopus wasn't very expensive for your demonstration purposes, though for economy of scale the squid cannot be beat.

When buying whole and cleaning, you really have to buy more than you expect because there is substantial difference between whole and cleaned weights. I just looked around it is roughly a 2:1 ratio.

Regards,

Didn't get to Argyle yet, but the Chinatown markets don't have the right ones (DH wanted to go there instead of Argyle yesterday for dinner.) Too small or too big (wrong species) or already cleaned. My friend says the ones on Argyle are probably cleaned, too.

So I've called every fish market and grocery store I can think of in the city, and they're all cleaned. Next stop, Viet Hoa. But the Marketplace does in fact have them whole, as confirmed by a phone call, so in the worst case I have to suck it up and head out to Skokie!

Thanks again for that tip, otherwise I would have never found them!

The Marketplace on Oakton is one cool store! They had whole squid in spades. I bought 6 boxes at $5.99 each, and it was WAY too many. Still have 2 boxes in the freezer. Each 3 lb. box has at least 40 squids.

I did a dissection/ cooking run-through before doing it with the students, and the calamari was the best I've ever eaten. So tender. Makes me wonder what the restaurants do wrong, since it was such a simple recipe of flour, salt, pepper, and hot oil. The students also thought it was their fave.

Anyway, gutting my own squid was pretty fun. Just wish I'd taken some pictures!

I assume you pan fried your calimari, which is the right way to do it. You used olive oil, right? Most restaurants deep fry it in whatever is this month's cheap vegetable oil (so, overcook it, making it rubbery).