I learned that cuttlefish are members of the Cephalopod family. Their cousins are the octopus, squid and nautilus. After reading some articles about how intelligent and friendly the cuttles are I was a little sad to think I was going to eat them. Mine were already cleaned, sliced and frozen anyway so their pet qualities were pretty limited.
If you don't know how to cook with cuttles I'd recommend you use them the same way you would a nautilus ;-)
or rattlesnake. They taste just like chicken, except with a sweet seafood taste (a little like lobster and calamari to my taste) and, like calamari, a more or less rubbery texture depending on how you cook them.
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I learned that cuttlefish are used in Italian, Greek, Chinese and Australian cooking. Like they say over at about.com Seppie: That's Cuttlefish, and means wonderful versatility. I didn't name my cuttle, although Seppie does sound like a nice name.
I just made up a cooking technique after browsing through a few recipes -
Soak frozen cuttle fish in cold water seasoned with Johnny's Seasoning Salt (you can make a great smoked salmon by mixing Johnny's and brown sugar and layering it on salmon fillets, let fish soak in the brine, air dry and then smoke using alder...yum)
Heat up a pan filled with a 1/2 inch or so of good oil (have you ever wondered what that means? "a good oil"? Basically I guess one that won't burn...one intended for cooking...okay use a bad oil I don't care)
Cook some seasoned curly fries. This has nothing to do with the recipe, but I thought they would go good with the cuttle.
Get some Dragon sauce, garlic or garlic powder, hot sauce, and hot pepper flakes together to season your cuttle. Dragon sauce is some combination of soy and sweet...I had a bottle left over from somewhere that I wanted to use up.
Drain your seppie. Pat dry with paper towels. Be sure and wash your hands after you finish draining your seppie. It's a state law.
Fry your cuttlefish, add some garlic, hot sauce, dragon sauce and hot pepper flakes.
Eat warm with seasoned curly fries.
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Johnny's Fine Foods Inc. is located in Tacoma Washington. They offer a variety of items; spices, juice, tea, preserves and alder chips (among other things) on their webpage. I thought their prices looked very reasonable.
