Taken at Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji Fish Market where tuna auction is an enterprise as big as eBay, these purple creatures are squid found in the Japanese water. I am not sure about you, but they sure look a lot scarier than my grilled Enoki mushrooms (which unfortunately were mistaken for jellyfish and mini octopuses by a few readers.)
Do you know what they are called? Have you tasted them before? Are they delicious?
Drop me a comment!
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Eek! Definitely scary, but they’ll be delicious once you work your magic on them! Also, I love how innovative you have been with the dazzling appetizer/hors d’oeuvres! Can’t wait to see what you’ll be making with the squid!
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I’m not too sure what they are called. But they do look a lot fatter than the ones in M’sia. Gosh..
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I don’t know what they are called leh! Japanese purple squid loh! Or maybe Ika ? I may have eaten them without knowing what it was ;p
Wonder if these are suitable for simple grilling? I tried grilled squid (sotong baker) in Peranankan cuisine before….wah…yummu yummy!
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R those white dots the eyes? How big are the squids?
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hmm are those the squid(of whatever it’s called) often found in the starters for Japanese dinning? Cooked with a sweet dark purple sauce. Very yummy.
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I have no idea what they’re called, but Tsujiki Fish Market is one of my favorite places in the world–all that activity and so many photo opportunities. It was the highlight of my trip to Tokyo.
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umms is it called purple squid??
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behhh….I do not like this kind of animals….it like marchmaloo….not at all ;-) You are planning to cook them ???
Cheers
Claude
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Cuttlefish?
If I could do my mom’s braised squid recipe then I’d do that. But I can’t so I’d marinate them in a little garlic and fish sauce and then grill them. Put on a bed of mixed salad greens. Squeeze lemon and black pepper over. Or drizzle balsamic vinegar.
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It certainly looks yummy to me than scary. I think i would probably cook sambal sotong with it to go with fragrant coconut rice. Mmmmm…yum yum yum!
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not scary at all. v can pop them all in as fast as u can say stop it .
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doesn’t look scary to me. i like eating squid… esp. its egg!
yeah, i’m sure it would be BEST when cook as precious pea suggested!
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if I’m not mistaken, it’s called ko ika (子イカ）meaning small squid in Japanese. But not 100% sure though. it may look a little ugly, but it sure tastes nice! :)
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the octopus looks like part of the human male anatomy…. “Gonads Octopi”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gonads_octopus
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I’d say those are cuttlefish, which look puffier than squid. You know, the kind that’s usually dried and sold in tough chewy strips? Am I right? :)
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Hi, thank you so much for your comment…I have answer that just in case ;-)
Hi Rasa,
Your recipe is a total success…you have seen how many people leave a comment for this plat..just amazing !!! I should said that I started the post by saying 5 personnal things about me that the people do not know: when I was a child, I would that my job is to picnic all my life…see the picture ;-) I’m also saying that I have driven a BMW M5 and roadster sport, I was not successful when I try to make macaron and that my blog was first entitled chez Claude-Olivier and then In vino veritas and finally 1001 recettes…
So now if you have other propositions to continue with Malaysian food, do not hesitate !!!
Thank you one again for this marvelous recipe
Cheers
Claude
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I think I have eaten this before. Its springy without being tough. I think?!!
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PE - yeah, I love squid and I have seen some scary ones, but these with their eye balls all white and popping out with crazy tentacles sprawling all over…they are a little scary. ;)
Chris - yes, they are very padat inside the body…must have a lot of eggs goodness!
WC - quick quick, please cook your dish and post it on your blog!
Claude - I took the picture when I was in Tokyo…no, I won’t cook them because they are scary looking to me. But I would cook and devour the normal squid I am used to though. :P
Teckiee - you are probably right. The purple sauce is made of the skin perhaps?! :P
Tummy - yes, white dots are their eyes popping out. They are actually smaller than our sotong.
Tiga - Ika is bigger squid I think. Grilled sotong Peranakan style, OK, another inspiration for me to use up my frozen banana leaves. :P
Homesick Texan - welcome to RM and thanks for your comment. Tsukiji is fantastic, I love the tuna auction.
BC - maybe. ;)
Precious Pea - wow, yes, sambal sotong is sooooo good.
Team BSG - I reckon you would eat anything edible. ;)
Lucia - I love squid, but when I see lots of these spreading out in front of me with white eyes popping out…it was kind of disturbing. Another thing that I found disturbing when I was in Tsukiji market- a small bucket of many many many eels all swimming and tangling inside…eeewww.
Sue - thanks…ko ika that is. I am sure they taste great. :)
Sam - Your link is 404.
Shilpa - Cuttlefish has a much wider body, yes? ;)
Claude - thanks for your translation for me. I went to Babelfish for try to understand some of your French comment, and Babelfish got it translated all funny and wrong. LOL!
Flower - I have never tried these before so I have no idea. Who knows, I might have eaten them without me knowing. ;)
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Grill squid sounds yummy w/some cold beer haha, burp burp ! :)
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RM, heh heh, dunno lah, the only whole cuttlefish I’ve ever seen were in Sentosa’s Underwater World, and yes, they were wider! :)
But I thought these were cuttlefish because they reminded me of this childhood snack:
http://static.flickr.com/50/149642524_b6c3a9a23b.jpg
Did you also eat this “Chewing gum of the Orientals” as a kid? Silly name, right? haha..
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Are they the ones that it the bright orange kind at Jap restaurants?
aiyo, makes me wanna eat them!
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They are called HOTARU-IKA, literallly meaning “firefly squid”. The name comes from the fact that their body glows in darkness. Hotaru-Ika is delicacy in early spring, a kind of appetizer popular in Japanese Izakayas (tapas bars Japanese style). They go really well with Sake (try Junmai-shu)!
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