How to cook squid to get rid of the 'urine' flavor? What causes that flavor? My brother-in-law and his buddy caught a big squid on a fishing trip awhile ago. They fired up a camp fire and proceeded to cook the squid. Once it was done, the took a bite and to their surprise it tasted horrible. They said it had a flavor like urine(I'm not sure why they would know what urine tastes like but since your sense of taste is connected to your sense of smell, when they tasted it it probably invoked memories of the scent of urine).

My question is, what is inside the squid that is causing this 'flavor' when cooked and how do you prepare squid to get rid of this flavor?

update

The squid was Humboldt Squid (aka jumbo squid) ~5 ft long. They were caught live and cleaned, I.e. guts removed. My brother-in-law confirmed the taste as "tasted like piss". :)
According to this site and confirmed by several others I found on the internet, the Humboldt Squid produces ammonia chloride as a defense mechanism, or as a side effect of asphixiation, or maybe both.

I couldn't find terribly reliable advice on how to avoid the contamination, but two points were repeatedly suggested on various bulletin boards:


When you catch the humboldt squid, cut its head off, clean and ice it immediately (on the boat).
when cleaning it, be careful not to puncture the swim bladder.


The other suggestion repeatedly offered was to catch some other kind of squid.

Hope that helps.  For more 3rd-hand advice, search the internet for "squid ammonia flavor" and you'll see lots of bulletin boards and similar sources.