The Last Fish: Calamari Veracruz

I promise this will be the last time I talk about our favorite Veracruz sauce for a while. But we still had some left over (after at least one other catfish dinner and a breakfast) and so I tried it on a pound of squid.

Squid is not to everyone's taste unless it's been battered and fried and served as calamari fritti with a pint of beer. But I happen to like the pristine flavor and slightly chewy texture of squid au naturel. Squid also happens to be economical relative to most seafood and having just come off a sustainable seafood symposium I thought I'd try eating a little lower on the food chain. Squid are abundant and get a big, green "best choice" rating from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "Seafood Watch" program as long as they're the "common squid" caught in the U.S. Atlantic.

I bought these squid at Whole Foods already cleaned. Otherwise, you need to reach into the squid cavity and pull out the guts as well as the cartilage that serves as the squid's backbone. There's also a very thin, purplish membrane covering the squid's body that needs to be removed. Then just give the squid a good rinse. Cut off and reserve the tentacles. If the squid hasn't already been cleaned when you bought it, you will need to find the squid's beak in the tentacles and remove that as well.

To cook, just bring the Veracruz sauce to a light boil in a skillet and add the squid. Toss the squid for a minute or two until it is just cooked through. Too much cooking will make it tough. Serve immediately, perhaps with a little chopped parsley for garnish.

We ate ours with some leftover curry-roasted cauliflower that seemed to work particularly well the olive-jalapeno-cinnamon-clove flavors of the Veracruz sauce. I'm beginning to think this sauce is worth making ahead and freezing, it works so well with a variety of seafood.