It starts with great ingredients like Fra' Mani's Spanish-style chorizo, smoked paprika, green olives from Spain that are stuffed with anchovies (known as "crack olives" around here because you simply can't stop yourself from eating handfuls of them), saffron and fresh seafood. Plus some chicken thighs, a rich stock, arborio or bomba rice, colorful peppers and the essential onions and garlic.
While Dave is busy lighting the grill, I'm in the kitchen chopping vegetables and steeping the saffron in a dry white wine to soften it and bring out its amazing flavor and color. And when the fire's ready and we've got a nice bed of hot coals, it's just a matter of putting the paella pan on the grill, sautéing the vegetables in a bit of olive oil, adding the chicken to brown and then the chorizo to warm it up and frying the rice for a couple of minutes. Then pour in the stock, add the olives and cover it with the lid of the grill to let that wonderful smoke infuse the dish. A few minutes before serving we add mussels or clams hinge-side down and let them cook briefly, and it's done.A challenge we've been working on lately is to achieve a good carmelized bottom crust, known as the socarrat. The trick seems to be in getting just the right ratio of stock to rice, so the rice softens but maintains a slight crunch while being dry enough to form that crust and yet not burn from the heat of the coals.
We love paella for dinner parties because it feeds a crowd and is fun to bring to the table and serve from its pan. Plus you don't really need anything else with it except maybe a simple green salad and some full-bodied, earthy red wine. If you're interested in trying it yourself, you can get the recipe here.Details: Chorizo, rice and olives available at Foster & Dobbs; olives also available in large (1.5 lb.) cans at City Market on NW 21st; smoked paprika available at New Seasons.
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2 comments:
OK, Kathleen, you knew the paella thing would get a reaction out of us! I printed the recipe, but I don’t know what Arborio or bomba rice is. We use rice from Levante (of course, that’s where paella comes from) but we make “northern” paella, not the real Valencian type.
We would never use chorizo in paella, just for your information, and we make the sofrito (I don’t know how to say that, so grab a dictionary!) separate from the meat, and with the peppers and onions, we add a nice ripe tomato.
I’ve never heard of smoked paprika (which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, I just don’t know it). We use equal parts of sweet and spicy paprika.
We also lightly ground the saffron in a mortar and then sprinkle it directly into the broth as its added to the rice. The wine idea is cool – we’ll try it!
Finally, as for the broth, we use shrimp. Even if you’re not going to put shrimp (big ones, prawns!) in the paella (although we usually do), use the shrimp heads to make the broth.
If a million Spaniards gave you paella recipes, you would end up with at least 2 or 3 million different ways to make it… When we see you in August (you will be in Portland in August, right?) we can make a list of all the paellas we know!
- John
http://www.marquesdevaldueza.com
Thanks for the tips on the paella, John! It's so hard to know what it really tastes like when I've only read about it or had it in "Spanish" restaurants here. It seems the best thing to do is try to bring out the individual flavors of the ingredients (whatever those might be) without making it into mush. So I guess I'll just have to come to over sometime and try it!
And we'll definitely be around in August...keep us posted on dates!
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