Strange as it may seem, squid and peas were made for each other. The sweetness of peas sets off the brinyness of squid perfectly. And the savoriness of a tomato sauce brings it all together nicely. This dish, as so many traditional Roman dishes, is really quite easy to make but very tasty.
Ingredients
Serves 4-6 persons
- 500g (1 lb) squid, cleaned and cut up
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 200g (1/2 lb) canned tomatoes, crushed or passed through a food mill
- 300-500g (1 lb) peas, frozen or fresh
- White wine
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
Directions
Sauté the chopped onion in olive oil until soft and translucent. Then add 500g (1 lb.) of cleaned and cut up squid (see Notes below). Allow the squid pieces to sauté along with the onion to absorb the flavors for a few minutes. (The squid will probably shed quite a bit of water, but that’s perfectly normal. No need to try to boil if off.)
Add a splash of white wine, allow it to evaporate and then add the tomatoes. Mix everything well, lower the heat. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the squid is quite tender. (Add water if the sauce becomes too dense.)
Then add the peas (or more or less if you want—there is no real ‘right’ amount) and continue simmering until the peas are just cooked, about 5 minutes for frozen, 15-20 for fresh.
Adjust for seasoning and serve immediately.
Notes
If there is any complication to this dish, it’s in the cleaning of the squid. Many places now you can buy pre-cleaned and pre-cut squid. Or you can ask your fishmonger to clean the squid for you. But if don’t have either option available, or you want to save some money, here is the procedure as demonstrated by our friends over at the Rouxbe Online Cooking School. It’s really quite easy once you get the hang of it. Then cut the body of the squid into rings about 2 cm (1/2 inch) wide.
By the way, the real dish is made not with squid, but with its ‘cousin’ the cuttlefish. But where I live, at least, cuttlefish is hard (if not impossible) to find, so I use squid, which is a perfectly fine substitute.
As for the peas, I generally use frozen peas, which are easy to find and really quite good. If you are using fresh peas, make sure they are really fresh. My own experience with fresh peas has been pretty disappointing—they tend to be ‘over the hill’, lacking sweetness and having a mealy texture.
There are basically two cooking times for squid: either very short, as in fried calamari, or quite long, as in this dish and many other ‘stewed’ dishes. Anything in between will result in toughness, so once you’re past just a minute or two, you need to keep going until the squid is done. But you can make this dish in less time with a pressure cooker. Once you are ready to simmer the squid and tomatoes, bring the cooker up to pressure and cook for 20-30 minutes. Then release the pressure and proceed as per the recipe. You may find that the sauce is a bit thin—there is very little evaporation in pressure cooking. If so, just simmer uncovered for a few minutes to reduce before adding the peas.
A recipe for seppie coi piselli, by the way, is mentioned in Artusi (1891). His version is made in bianco (without tomatoes) and the soffrito is made with garlic and parsley in addition to the onion. This recipe is taken from one of my old stand-bys, Le specialità della cucina romana: ricette tratte dalla tradizionale cucina casalinga. And, according to Le ricette regionali italiane (Solaris 1995) a similar dish—in a tomato sauce but minus the peas—is called sepe a’ la veneziana, or Venetian-style cuttlefish. A nearly identical dish to the Venetian one but made with calamari instead of cuttlefish, called calamari in umido, or stewed calamari, is included in La cucina napoletana (Newton Compton 1992). Clearly, this dish gets around…
Seppie coi piselli alla romana (Roman-Style Braised Squid and Peas)
Ingredients
- 500 g 1 lb squid, cleaned and cut up
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 200 g 1/2 lb canned tomatoes, crushed or passed through a food mill
- 300-500 g 1 lb peas, frozen or fresh
- White wine
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
Instructions
- Sauté the chopped onion in olive oil until soft and translucent. Then add 500g (1 lb.) of cleaned and cut up squid (see Notes below). Allow the squid pieces to sauté along with the onion to absorb the flavors for a few minutes. (The squid will probably shed quite a bit of water, but that's perfectly normal. No need to try to boil if off.)
- Add a splash of white wine, allow it to evaporate and then add the tomatoes. Mix everything well, lower the heat. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the squid is quite tender. (Add water if the sauce becomes too dense.)
- Then add the peas (or more or less if you want—there is no real 'right' amount) and continue simmering until the peas are just cooked, about 5 minutes for frozen, 15-20 for fresh.
- Adjust for seasoning and serve immediately.
Discover more from Memorie di Angelina
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
And you might also like...
Carbonade valdostana
Salmone in crosta (Salmon en croûte)
Scrippelle ‘mbusse (Crepes in Broth)
Arrosto di maiale con cipolline (Roast Pork with Pearl Onions)
Ragù d’agnello e peperoni (Lamb and Red Pepper Ragù)
Ravioli nudi (Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings)
Pasta alla crema di peperoni (Pasta with Bell Pepper Cream Sauce)
Cocktail di gamberetti (Shrimp Cocktail in the Italian Manner)
Crema di lenticchie ai funghi trifolati
Zeppole di San Giuseppe
14 Comments on “Seppie coi piselli alla romana (Roman-Style Braised Squid and Peas)”
In the end I decided to serve it with toasted sourdough. It was a great combination, and I don’t think I’ll even be trying it with pasta in the future.
It was a lovely meal, and my father in particular was very impressed and raved about it. We live in Dalmatia, so the influences of Italian cuisine are enormous, but this particular meal we’ve never had.
I did add some garlic and parsley to the soffrito after the onion got soft, and I used a lot more wine, and the whole can of tomatoes. I thought it was good more tomato-y like that.
Anyway, thank you very much for the recipe. I’ll be making it again.
Dear Tea,
Sorry for the late reply but I’ve been traveling. Anyway you beat me to it. In Rome, this dish would typically be accompanied by some good crusty bread, so you were right on the mark. That said, if you had leftovers, perhaps not enough for a full portion, I could easily see using them to dress pasta.
Anyway glad you liked the dish!
Hi,
How would you recommend serving this to make a more rounded and filling meal out of it? Just with bread? Or maybe over some pasta?
Thanks!
Pingback: Polpo in umido con le patate (Octopus and Potato in Tomato Sauce) - Memorie di Angelina
Thanks for the recipe Frank. My parent’s used to cook it and it’s a great dish. I was actually able to find frozen cuttlefish in a local Italian deli and used that. It was the big cuttlefish. Next time I’ll try it with the small cuttlefish. Thanks!
And thank you for your comment, Denio! Hope you like it this way, too. Both are delicious, of course.
My mom made calamari and peas often when I was a kid. She’s long past so I tried many times to recreate her recipe but never with success. So seemingly simple yet I never got the same flavor as hers. Then, while reading your directions it dawned on me what she did. She first put the calamari in a dry pan over medium/low fire to gently sweat (not cook) the purplish water out of it. Then she drained and did it again a couple more times. The rest of her recipe was similar to yours except she added a drop of anisette near the end of the cooking time. I did it and it was perfect. Thanks for jogging my memory Frank.
Fantastic, Carmine! That dry sweating sounds like a great idea to eliminate the excess water the calamari so often have. I’ll give that a try next time.
Tried this recipe tonight in the pressure cooker, it was great! Even better with a little fresh parmesan & lemon zest on top. Thanks for the recipe.
@Thomas, Sure. Back links are welcome provided you identify the source. Thanks for asking! Cheers, Frank
Hello,
This is a message for the webmaster/admin here at memoriediangelina.blogspot.com.
Can I use some of the information from your blog post right above if I provide a backlink back to this website?
Thanks,
Thomas
Hello,
Thanks for sharing this link – but unfortunately it seems to be down? Does anybody here at memoriediangelina.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?
Cheers,
James
But, of course! Back links are always welcome!
We have been eating a lot of seafood in the weekly rotation. This looks like another must try recipe. If I post it, could I link it back to your blog. Please? -Tien