Whole squid

Form

Shelled

Typical weight

150–300 g

Typical thickness

5–15 mm

Cut

Not a cut of anything

The tubes already in the catalogue are the easy half of a squid. Whole, it is two materials: a smooth even-walled tube that cooks in a minute or two a side, and a cluster of tentacles that are thinner, irregular and catch on the bars — they colour and crisp far faster and will be leathery by the time a thick tube is done. Cooking them separately is the answer, which is why most preparations of whole squid begin by cutting the tentacles off. Cleaning is the other difference and is real work: quill, ink sac, beak and innards all come out first. The doneness rule for squid is the one everybody knows and it holds here — a minute or two, or forty minutes, and nothing in between. No duration is published.

It came out tough

Prawns, scallops, squid, lobster or octopus came out rubbery — 3 distinguishable causes.

Cooling, keeping and reheating what is left is general guidance for barbecue leftovers. Neither UK authority publishes anything specific to whole squid, and BBQHQ does not invent a distinction they do not make.

• No published barbecue cooking time has been found for this food. The sources that cover it describe how to prepare it or how to keep it safe, not how long it takes over fire.

• No institutional publisher has been found giving a grilling duration for this shellfish. The visual cues published here are what the available sources actually support.

What we know we’re missing records what was searched for each of these, and what would settle it.