I was watching an old VHS tape of Lidia Bastianich where she
visited Italy and brought back a recipe for steaming squid. It
inspired me, so gave it a try last night, and (gahds!) does it
ROCK!

Lidia started off by "infusing" the double-boiler's -- a tall
stock pot with a steel/aluminum colander -- water with lemon
zest peel (not grated), fresh bay leaves. Boil the water for
20-30 minutes. During this time you can clean the squid (which
I job-shared the daughter-units into doing 3-of-the-4-lbs
<VEG>) and cut into rings and pieces.

When the time for "infusing" the water is done, you pop the
whole batch of squid into the colander and lid it. She
recommended spoon-turning the batch at about 2 minutes (mine
was closer to three.) I then seasoned with kosher salt. I
flipped the squid about for a total of 10 minutes; they were
all perfectly pink and cooked to a perfect doneness.

When I took them off the steamer, I tossed EVOO (cold-pressed
from CA), more Kosher salt, lemon juice, red pepper flakes,
grated orange zest (my Satsumi worked the charm), and topped it
with fresh Italian parsley (flat leaf). During this whole
process, Daughter-unit Alpha was making potato gnocchi and
Daughter-unit Beta was batching 3 lbs of spaghettini.

Dinner, on the whole, was fantastic -- even after Spawn showed
her mother (SWMBO¹) that calamari tentacles were delicious.

¹
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/electroni...rs/Rumpole-FAQ

The Ranger