This is the second in an occasional series of Good Eatin’, kind of a sidebar usually involving leftovers (LO), where I will describe an easily put together meal that we enjoyed very recently, maybe yesterday.

Good Eatin’ ii

Friday for dinner, I cooked a really simple squid dish that I saw in the New York Times a couple weeks ago: Squid with Black Pepper, Vietnamese Style, by Mark Bittman. It sounded so appealing, that I went looking for squid right away. At Bryant’s, maybe the best fish store in town, they’re out of squid. I went to Cal Mart just down the block. They had no squid; the guy said he could order it for me and have it tomorrow. But I want it today, so he said to go to the big Chinese fish market on Clement Street. I did, and found that they had the big squid—what I call “steak squid”—so I settled for that.

The recipe is insanely easy; start the squid in hot oil, add lots of ground black pepper, add chopped garlic, add Vietnamese fish sauce, when the squid are opaque and white, serve over rice. It takes about 2 minutes to cook.

Mine turned out without much sauce. I think I didn’t use enough fish sauce (I’m scared of it, too much is really awful), and I think the smaller, regular squid throw off more juices. But it tasted good, nonetheless. Regular squid is on my list, so I can do this again.

I could hardly wait for Saturday lunch, squid fried rice.

Fried rice is sort of the Asian hash. I love it. I even have a recipe for fried rice from the back of a Hot & Spicy Spam can. Anyway, I chopped the leftover squid into bits—bearing in mind that it already has lots of black pepper and jalapenos in it—got whatever vegetables I had on hand and chopped those, got out the leftover rice and made a sauce. Stupid simple.

Squid Fried Rice
2 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

Cookables
chopped celery
chopped carrot
1 small leek, split and sliced
5 cauliflower flowerets, chopped
That’s what I had on hand, anything will do. About 1 1/2 cups, altogether

Leftover squid, about 3/4 cup, chopped

Sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon Teriyaki sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon fish sauce (because the squid is flavored with fish sauce)

About 2 cups leftover, cold rice (freshly cooked rice won’t work, gets gummy.)

Heat enough oil coat the bottom, in a 10 inch sauté pan.
Add the eggs and scramble quickly with a wooden spoon, reserve on a heated plate.
Add oil to the pan and add the cookables. Saute 2 or 3 minutes to cook but not get soft.
Add the squid and stir for a minute to warm.
Add the rice and stir for a minute to warm.
Stir in the sauce.
Stir in the reserved eggs, stir to combine and warm.
Serve.

Now that’s Good Eatin’.