Sex Up Your Vegetables with Squid and a Whole Lot of Butter

Toro NYC and Boston madman Jamie Bissonnette has a few chef’s tricks up his sleeve for turning run-of-the-mill fall vegetables like squash, turnips, and carrots into a rice dish on par with any Spanish tapas joint.

One of those secrets is txiperones in su tinta, which—we’ll save you the Google search—is a fancy way of saying canned squid. It might sound unusual, but a squid-based vinaigrette is the perfect counterpoint to all of those fall-and-winter starches.

The other secret is butter, and lots of it. In fact, this recipe calls for both brown butter and the normal kind which, combined with baharat, lemongrass, and garlic, is a reliable antidote for the darkest of oh-no-its-suddenly-chilly-outside blues.

“This should really just be called rice with stuff,” Bissonnette told us, in an understatement of epic proportions. The truth is that this one-pot wonder can get you through the week without ever being boring.

And if you decide to go on a Monday night Fernet-fueled bender like Bissonnette did a few months back on Chef’s Night Out, what better way to mop up a hangover than with salty squid and rice?