A Quick and Easy Squid & Vegetable Dinner

Last night’s dinner, squid with scallions, garlic, string beans and dinosaur kale, was a variation of the sautéing technique I use constantly, both at home and in cooking lessons.

Understanding the order in which to add ingredients to the pan is probably the most difficult aspect of this, but you’ll be able to make an infinite number of dishes once you figure out the proper sequencing.

For my squid dish, I started by heating olive oil (a fat) in a sauté pan, the standard opening.

When the fat was hot, I added the scallions and string beans, the food items that needed the most cooking time. After those started to soften (about five minutes, with occasional stirring), I add the sliced garlic. Garlic can burn easily, so I made sure it only browned (about two minutes, with occasional stirring).

Despite having more cooking to do, I knew the garlic wouldn’t burn because my next two items, the sliced squid and chopped dinosaur kale (photo, below), would both be adding liquid (the squid’s natural juices and the water left over from my rinsing of the kale) to the pan, preventing the garlic from burning and creating a little sauce at the same time.

After two minutes or so, when the delicate squid and kale were 70 percent done (remember about carryover cooking!), I turned off the heat and added fresh lemon juice, unrefined sea salt and fresh ground pepper. I mixed and plated; it was delicious.

Granted, the squid was fresh from the farmers’ market and the vegetables were from my garden, but there’s no reason this dish can’t be replicated with whichever vegetables and proteins are on hand. Just think about how much cooking time each ingredient needs and stagger the addition of the ingredients accordingly.