Squid prepared as food, most often coated in batter and deep-fried into golden rings — a Mediterranean fishmonger's mainstay that has gone global as a bar appetizer.
Squid by another name
“Calamari” is the Italian word for squid. Outside Italy, it’s used loosely as a culinary term — when something appears as “calamari” on a Western menu, it almost always means battered, fried squid rings.
In actual Italian cooking, calamari covers a wider range: stuffed and braised whole squid (calamari ripieni), grilled with lemon, simmered in tomato (calamari in umido), or used in seafood risottos and pasta sauces.
The texture trick
Squid is notoriously easy to overcook. The flesh has just two windows:
- Quick high heat — under 2 minutes for tender squid.
- Long slow heat — 20+ minutes for tender braised squid.
Anything between turns the meat rubber-band tough. The classic deep-fried calamari ring takes 60–90 seconds in 175 °C oil; longer and it becomes inedible.
Three squid forms on menus
- Rings — sliced from the body tube, ideal for frying.
- Tentacles — left whole (or split for very large squid).
- Stuffed — body tube filled with breadcrumbs, garlic, herbs, sometimes the chopped tentacles.
Squid ink
The black ink from squid (and cuttlefish) is sold separately as a culinary ingredient — used to color pasta black (pasta al nero), risotto, and Spanish arroz negro. Fully edible, faintly briny, with no fishy note.
Find more foods by letter
Calamari starts with C and ends with I. Browse other foods along the same letter.
Foods that contain a letter from "Calamari":