Seared Squid Tacos in Oregano Vinegar

Method

1. Slit each tube down one side and open it out into a flat sheet, then scrape the inside clean with the back of the blade. Score the inner face in a shallow lattice, the cuts about a finger's width apart and nowhere near through, and divide the sheets into bands as wide as two fingers. Leave the tentacle clusters whole and dry every piece properly.
2. Pour the red wine vinegar into a small bowl and crumble the dried oregano into it between your palms, which wakes the herb up in a way stirring never does. Nothing else goes into that bowl — the oil in this dish stays in the pan, and the sourness is meant to arrive undiluted.
3. Cut the tomato into thin wedges and stand them on the board to shed their juice, then heap the rocket and the torn parsley beside them.
4. Rub the olive oil into the squid — bare metal welds itself to wet cephalopod, and ridges keep the contact down to the bars — then bring a ridged griddle up over your highest flame until you cannot hold a hand a palm's width above it. Lay the bands down scored-side first with room around every piece, and put the tentacle clusters on beside them at the same moment. A minute a side, one turn and no more, and everything comes off together as soon as the flesh turns opaque; past that it tightens and will not soften again short of a long braise.
5. While the squid sears, roll the corn tortillas together inside a damp cloth and stand the bundle in a second pan kept barely warm, three minutes and no handling. The cloth gives up its water as steam and the pair come off limp and a shade heavier than they went on.
6. Tip the squid straight off the griddle into the bowl and turn it through the vinegar twice with tongs; the pieces are far too hot to handle and there is only a splash of liquid down there, so keep it moving until every cut face has been dragged through it. Hot squid takes sourness up through those cuts in seconds, and once it has cooled it barely takes any at all.
7. Set the squid down in its bowl, the tomato, rocket and parsley in another, and the tortillas still folded into the cloth they steamed in. Cut the lemon into wedges and put them alongside. Each taco is built and squeezed at the table, one at a time, so no tortilla stands about under wet filling.