As we sailed amongst the islands off the west coast of Borneo, we were able to purchase fish and squid from the fisherman that visit us, when we drop anchor for the night. The squid, used for this recipe, we bought off a fisherman at Pulau Bawal and the fish I use to stuff the squid was a mackerel we traded a mobile phone and a pair of sunnies for, when anchored off Pulau Genting.

It had been two weeks since we had been able to get fresh fruit and veg and  I used my last fresh tomato for this recipe. At the time we had been eating rice with almost every meal. Every time I cook rice I will cook a cup of rice and I then use the left over to make rice cakes or I heat it up with curry sauce etc. This time I used it to stuff my squid.

OK so this is what I did…

I made a stuffing for the squid with:

• about 1/2 cup of left over cooked rice
• a small fillet of mackerel (finely chopped) about 100g
• 1 large red chilli, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tomato, chopped,
• 5 small asian shallots, finely chopped
• about 1/2 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix it altogether and stuff it into the squid tubes. Close each tube with a toothpick. Cook the squid tubes for 5 mins to brown them slightly and then removed them from the pan

For the sauce…

I heated oil in the fry pan and fried:

• 1/2 head of garlic (about 6 cloves), chopped
• 3 small hot chillies, finely chopped
• 1 large red chilli, chopped
• 8 small asian shallots, chopped
• about 80g anchovy fillets
• 2 Tablespoons capers, chopped

I fried this until it was cooked and the garlic and shallots had softened. I then added:

• 1 can of tomatoes, diced
• 3 Tbs tomato paste
• dried italian herbs and black pepper to taste.

I brought it to the boil and then simmered the sauce for about 15 minutes, after which I added the stuffed squid tubes. I then simmered it until the flavours had developed into a rich, spicy, flavoursome sauce and the squid were cooked through (adding water as necessary). I served the squid with rice.

The left overs

I used the left over sauce the next day with some mackerel fillets. I cooked the mackerel then added the sauce to the pan with the fish and simmered until heated through. I served it with pasta. Yum!