Pepper Squid Tacos with Blistered Green Beans

Method

1. Put the peppercorns and the coriander seed into a bare pan over a middling flame and keep them sliding across it for two minutes, until the coriander has darkened to the colour of weak tea.
2. Tip them into a mortar and pound them coarse. You should still be able to pick out individual pieces; ground to dust they go acrid against the squid.
3. Cut the cleaned squid into rings a finger wide, leaving the wings whole, and blot every piece between two sheets of kitchen paper.
4. Spread the rings out uncovered and leave them ten minutes to give up the water sitting on their surface. Squid that meets the pan damp poaches in what it brought with it, and a ring is only tender for its first few minutes of heat or after the best part of an hour of stewing — there is nothing in between.
5. Top and tail the green beans and cut them into short lengths, split the half lime into two wedges, and pull the coriander into sprigs.
6. Get the oil hot in a heavy pan, put the beans in with the salt and work them over a high flame for five minutes, until they have taken dark blisters along one side.
7. In with the squid and the crushed spice, and toss the pan hard for three minutes without stopping, until every ring has turned from grey to opaque white.
8. As the squid goes into the beans, lay the corn tortillas on a second bare hotplate and turn them across three minutes, until brown blisters come up on both faces.
9. Take the pan to the table with the tortillas, squeeze a lime wedge across it and fold squid, beans and a sprig of coriander into each one as you reach for it.