Supions à la Provençale (Warm Squid Salad with Bibb Lettuce and Garlic Croutons)

Welcome to One Pot Bangers, Benjamin Kemper’s column, where you’ll find our freshest, boldest cooking ideas that require just one pot, skillet, or sheet pan. Busy week? We’ve got you covered with these low-effort, high-reward recipes from around the globe.

I knew there was no way the local population was subsisting on $90-a-head soup served by white-jacketed waiters, so I set out to determine what folks were really eating. And that’s how I found my new favorite seafood dish, supions à la provençale.   

Supions are small squid measuring some three inches in length. At down-home restaurants across the region, cooks sauté them with garlic and parsley until they’re deep brown and crunchy in spots. That crunch, as I’d learn at Restaurant Paule et Kopa, was as much about a quick dredge in flour as it was about the high flame. Behind the swinging door, I watched as a cook tossed the squid into a screaming-hot pan and then let them sizzle, undisturbed, for what seemed like an eternity. “Uh, aren’t they going to burn?” I asked without thinking, immediately wincing at how pedantic I must have sounded. “Patience! Patience!” he said with a grin. “You must resist the temptation to disturb them.” Two minutes later, I was rewarded with a plate of the most tender—yet simultaneously crisp—squid I’d ever tasted. 

To better understand the dish, I caught up with Alexis Steinman, a longtime Marseille transplant and culinary tour guide with Culinary Backstreets. “Squid with parsley and garlic is the epitome of old-school Marseille cuisine,” she told me over milky-white glasses of pastis. “Simple. Familial. Italian-inspired.” She then pointed me in the direction of Chez Etienne, another supion temple. There, in the sweaty paper-tablecloth dining room heaving with locals, the squid were meatier, the garlic more assertive. I alternated bites with the side salad the supions came with: Bibb lettuce and radicchio kissed with lemon-mustard vinaigrette. Later on, as I flumped into the taxi, I thanked the heavens for my N95 mask: Every exhale felt like bioterrorism.  

Back home in my Madrid apartment, I futzed with the recipe until I had the best of both worlds: the crackly exterior from Paule et Kopa and the fearless garlickiness from Chez Etienne. And borrowing a page from the latter, I dumped the fried squid over a bed of lemony greens and threw on some croutons for crunch.  

Last week, as my friends helped themselves to seconds of the supions, it struck me that there is truly no better souvenir than a recipe. This dish, a portal to Marseille’s louche, rambunctious taverns jammed with wine-swilling locals, will stick with me until the end of my days.

Note: If you like your squid with a bit of bounce, follow the recipe as is; if you prefer that it be extra tender, quick-brine it: In a bowl, dissolve 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of salt in 3 cups of cold water, then add the squid, cover, and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Drain and dry with paper towels before proceeding to step 3.