Grilled Stuffed Squid

I discovered this book by accident. The famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is married to a Korean-born woman named Maria Vongerichten, who was raised in the United States. At some point Ms. Vongerichten embraced her culinary roots and rediscovered her love of Korean food from her childhood.

I’ve never seen it, but I will: there is a public television series featuring her year of culinary and cultural Korean adventures, offering a delicious “entrée to the vibrant and savory cuisine of her homeland”. The companion book, published in 2011, is Kimchi Chronicles, from which this recipe hails.

Other enticing recipes include Jean-George’s Fast, Hot Kimchi, Spice-Rubbed Korean Chicken, Bibimbap, and Seafood and Scallion Pajeon. I will be making these!

From the author: “I first had a version of this dish from a street vendor in the city of Sokcho. It’s a traditional North Korean preparation. A very large squid was stuffed and steamed, then cut into inch-thick slices and pan-fried. When I came home to New York, I fooled around with the stuffing and simplified the recipe by stuffing small squid and throwing them on the grill.”

If you’ve never worked with squid, I have an easy squid tutorial that covers the A to Z of preparing squid.

Grilled Stuffed Squid
printable recipe below

2 tablespoons oil, plus more for grilling
1 small zucchini, very finely diced
1 yellow onion, very finely died
1 small carrot, finely died
3 garlic cloves, finely mined
1 jalapeà±o pepper, seeded and finely diced
1 cup cooked rice
1 tablespoon gochujang
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons gochugaru
1 tablespoon sweet rice powder
1 dozen small squid, cleaned, tentacles removed and reserved

Heat the 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the zucchini, onion, carrot, garlic, and jalapeà±o and cook, stirring now and then until softened, about 10 minutes.

Combine the sautéed vegetables, rice, gochujang, fish sauce, soy sauce, gochujaru, and sweet rice powder in a large bowl and toss well to coat. Allow the mixture to cool.

Prepare your squid while the filling is cooling.

Stuff each squid with about 2 tablespoon of the vegetable and rice mixture (you want them to be stuffed but not bursting).

Preheat a grill to high or preaheat a ridged cast iron grill pan over high heat. Brush the stuffed squid and the reserved tentacles with a little oil and sprinkle with salt.

Grill until marked on the first side, 1 to 2 minutes. Carefully turn and cook until marked and browned on the second side and the squid is opaque throughout, another 1 to 2 minutes. (My grill is broken so I wasn’t able to actually “fire-grill” the squid.”)

Serve hot.

These squid were fantastic. Filling them was a real pain, but definitely worth the trouble.

I had leftover filling with eggs!