Stir fried sotong in oyster sauce

The first time I had this dish was in a vegetarian restaurant where they used the vegetarian version of the sotong. I decided to try cooking this dish with real sotong and it was even better than the vegetarian version. I just love eating sotong be it cooked as sambal or a salad with kang kung. The sotong that I am referring to is the dried sotong which has to be rehydrated by soaking.

 The Malay word sotong is very confusing because it refers to both cuttlefish and squid although there is a difference between the two. Cuttlefish has a flattened oval head and eight stubby tentacles with two long tentacles for catching its prey. Squid has elongated heads and slender torpedo-shaped bodies and ten tentacles, two of which are very long. To me, sotong is the dried cuttlefish and squid is fresh and white in colour.

This is what the dried sotong looks like. You need to soak it before you can cook it. The best method of soaking dried cuttlefish is to use baking soda and soak it for 3 days. You need to change the soaking solution every day.

Soaking with plain water will only soften the dried cuttlefish but it will not rehydrate well.

Ingredients

 1 ready soaked sotong

1 medium green bell pepper

1 medium Bombay onion

6 dried chillies (more if you want it very spicy)

Soak the sotong overnight if possible

It should be completely immersed in the water

Soak the dried chilli to soften it a little

Cut the sotong into bite size pieces

Boil the sotong until soft.

Drain and put aside.

Cut the pepper and onion

Cut the dried chilli and remove the seeds

Heat a little oil and put in the chilli

Stir for a couple of minutes

Add the onion and green pepper

Stir until the onion and green pepper are almost cooked

Add the sotong and mix thoroughly.

Add 3 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp light soy sauce and ½ tsp sugar.

Mix thoroughly and add 2 tbsp water.

Dish up and serve with steamed rice.