Shrimp Stuffed Squid, Hazelnut Dust, Blood Orange Reduction

I am the first to admit that my lifestyle is a bit expensive.  My food and wine passions are really only fulfilled by experiencing them frequently.  You can't understand great wines until you taste them. Same with average wines.  This is also true with great food and cooking.  I learned a long time ago that I couldn't create inspired dishes at home without tasting how the most innovative restaurants and chefs did it in their own restaurants. Further, I could only set benchmarks for excellence by comparing restaurants to each other, which continually allows me to draw from these experience for inspiration.  I treat virtually every meal I eat in a restaurant as much more than a temporary investment in satisfaction. 

Dining at Charlie Trotter's will effect my cooking as I'm sure you'll see here.  A few nights after this experience, I went to the market looking to make a lite fish dish for dinner.  I saw whole squid and obviously had to stuff it with something like I had at Trotter's.  Then I randomly remembered a shrimp stuffed squid dish I had at 71 Clinton Fresh Food while Wylie was cooking there.  Perfect.  I'd make my Spanish-style shrimp, flavored with garlic, olive oil and parsley.  I wanted a bit of creaminess, so i picked up an avocado.  I needed something acidic to balance the flavors, so I picked up some freshly squeezed blood orange juice (just buy a couple and squeeze your own) and reduced it by 3/4 until a syrup-like consistency. 

The final piece came together when thinking about how I'd cook the squid.  After I stuffed the cooked and chopped shrimp into the squid and seasoned the exterior with salt and pepper, I dredged it in flour and submerged it in hot vegetable oil for about 1 minute. I then took it out, rolled it in some very finely ground hazelnuts (thus the dust) and put it back in the hot oil for another 15 secs.

While the collective experience of tossing cash at Charlie Trotter and Wylie Dufresne may have seemingly only given me temporary pleasure, somehow I see these experiences as investments that continually pay me back over time.

Comments

[laptop battery]

the most convenient and cheap replacement battery online shop in uk. We specialize in http://www.batteryfast.com laptop batteries,laptop AC adapters. All of batteries are brand new, with the excellent service from our customer service team, you can feel free to purchase on laptop battery!

[Bedelia]

Hi guys. Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up. Help me! Need information about: Anti asthma. I found only this - singulair overnight delivery. Pravek kalp anti allergic capsules, ayurvedic capsules manufacturer, anti allergic capsules suppliers, ayurvedic capsules supplier, anti allergic capsules. With prophylactic anti allergic effects. Waiting for a reply :rolleyes:, Bedelia from Tome.