Squid stuffed with chorizo, piquillo pepper sauce, and green beans
Once in a while, I attend an event or meet a Chef that inspires me to learn something new — and that once in a while happened last Sunday. The event was a cooking demonstration on sustainable seafood at 18 Reasons, and the Chef was Becky Selengut. In just a couple of hours, she showed us how to prepare 3 delicious, economical, and sustainable meals using squid, oysters, and sardines.
But she also talked about the importance of awareness and education, like knowing where your fish is coming from and whether it’s endangered. Here in the West Coast we are fortunate to have the Monterrey Bay Aquarium taking the lead in educating us about what fish to eat, and restaurants like Gaston Acurio’s La Mar following that lead and going fully sustainable.
At the end of the evening, I picked up a copy of her new book, Good Fish, and couldn’t wait to try a new recipe. The first thing I cooked was a decidedly Spanish dish — squid stuffed with chorizo — because a) hello, it had chorizo, b) I could use my newly learned squid cleaning skills from the demonstration, and c) I wanted to cook it in honor of a friend from Spain who was celebrating his birthday.
I was really surprised how much I enjoyed cleaning the squid. Even more so than deveining shrimp. Getting the apple and chorizo stuffed into the squid was a different story, but once it was ready I was very proud of my handiwork, surgically held together by toothpicks. All it would take was a couple of minutes of searing in my favorite skillet, and voila! A succulent sustainable squid for dinner.