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Stuffed Squid with Chocolate

Source of Recipe

My grandmother


List of Ingredients

1 large squid per person (first time. After that, as many as each likes)

For 6 squid:

2 onions
1/2 lb pork meat
2 slices white sandwich bread, without rind.
1 cup milk
2 hard boiled eggs
4 tomatoes (can be canned tomatoes)
salt, pepper, paprika, thyme, bay leaves.
Oil
Flour
Sherry or cognac
Bitter chocolate



Recipe

Clean the squid taking out the head and leaving the bag whole. It is not necessary to peel the skin.
Cut the legs in small pieces, put the bread in the cup of milk, and in a small pan heat up about 1 TBS of vegetable oil, and cook the onion, finely cut, at medium heat so it does not brown, until done. Then add the cut legs of the squid and after cooking them for about 10 minutes, the minced pork meat and the spices. Let simmer about 10 minutes more and add the bread, well crumbed and drained of the milk. It will be a paste.

Cook for about 15 minutes more. It should be a fairly dry mixture.

Stuff the squid bags with this mixture after adding to it the eggs finely cut, not filling the squids too much to avoid them bursting while cooking and closing the bags with a toothpick or similar, roll them in flour, and put in a pan large enough for all the squid, where another 1/2 a cup to 1 cup, depending on size, of oil has been heated. If any stuffing is left over, just add to the pan, it will be part of the sauce. Fry here squids until golden. Take out squids and in the same oil, starined, put the second onion finely cut, let cook until transparent and add the minced tomatoes. If straining oil is too much bother, use new, but you´ll loose some taste. Cook about 15 minutes and add the wine. Put in the squids and enough water to cover half the squid height, add the chocolate bar, grated or cut in small pieces, and let simmer until squids are very tender, will take about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Control the thickness of the sauce by adding water, or water and some more wine according to taste. Or some corn starch if too liquid.

I hope this is explicit enough. I am not usually too clear in my explanations, I do it more by feel. The quantity of chocolate will be clear to you on tasting, it is not too much, maybe 1/4 of a whole bar, but then again where you live a "bar" might be different from here. We take a bar as a normal Swiss chocolate bar, about 250 grams. Taste it, it should be there but not recognizable as such. Or yes, if you like it that way.

In Catalan cooking, it is fairly usual to thicken sauces with chocolate.