Squidlets!

 Nope, not seafood.  Pork!

 It was time to cook the first large roast from our pigs.  But I didn't plan well, and the ham was thawed two days before I had a day when I could cook it with the timing to be done for supper.  So I hit the books and landed on this one:

In this book, (on loan from a friend....waves to Andy and Haley!) a must-read for anyone raising their own meats, is a wonderfully weird little recipe for pork squidlets.  Intriguing.  I detest shellfish, but love-love-love anything fried.  Deep fry it and I'll eat it!  The recipe called for a tenderloin, yet I had a thawed gargantuan ham roast (uncured.)  No problem, I just carved off a couple of hunks before settling the roast into the Dutch oven, browned in its own lovely fat and braising in some broth and garden garlic.

I cut the reserved meat into 1/4-1/3 inch thick slices, then cut "tentacles" into each piece.  Since I didn't follow the instructions for the cut of meat, why follow any of the other instructions?  Be adventurous!  Spontaneous!  Daring!  Learn from your own mistakes!

Next was the flavoring.  I mashed a few cloves of garlic with a mortar and pestle (mincing would've done the job, but, hey....) and added some salt and black pepper.  The recipe called for a tablespoon of each, which seemed like too much for me.  I used plenty of garlic, but cut the salt down to 2 teaspoons (still too much) and the pepper down to 1 teaspoon (not enough.)  Instead of olive oil, I added a couple of good spoonfuls of the lard I had melting to fry the squidlets in.

I stirred the squidlets in and let them rest and take up the garlicky flavor for a few minutes while the lard heated and I decided what to bread them with.

The recipe called for cornstarch.  I had corn meal made from my home grown Wade's Giant Indian Corn....it smelled divine....so I made a test batch of four squidlets after squishing them around in some corn meal on a plate.  Hugh was not kidding when he said to cook them for less than a minute. 

They were a bit on the crunchy side but definitely delicious.

For the rest, I added some whole wheat flour to the corn meal and carefully coated the rest, pressing them into the mixture and getting all the tentacles well covered with the flour.  I fried them in two batches and YOWZA!  Delicious!  This one is definitely a keeper, but be aware that they must be eaten practically standing in the kitchen.  Crispy, crunchy perfection on a chilly, rainy, last day of 2011.