how to: the perfect paella

Paella is SO misunderstood.

Since its magnificence lies in the very small details, paella rarely gets the care it deserves and is often served up as nothing more than rice-with-something. And that's not even counting the times that it's straight from the freezer. Even (especially?) in Spanish homes, artifical coloring is used in place of saffron.

Paella 101: It's a dish from the Valencia region of Spain. The original paella, from what I can gather, had rabbits, green beans, saffron...snails, if you could find them; white broad beans, hard to find outside of the regions; maybe artichokes.  Paella is 'pan' in the Valencian dialect, so it refers to the cooking instrument and has evolved to refer to the entire dish.

So. Nowhere did you see me talk about peppers, seafood, sangria or the sunny South of Spain (if you want a seafood paella, look at my paella phase from last summer). But you WILL hear me talk about the socarrat. This is the much-desired crust on the bottom of the paella, which cannot be faked or hurried. How do you acheive it? The perfect cooking time and temperature, which is closely linked to the ratio of water to rice.

Fortunately, there is a way to calculate this ratio without, well, calculating. Plus you look really cool doing it. It's never failed me: when are at the final point of the cooking before adding the rice, and the stock/water is up to the screws of your paella, you pour the rice along the diameter of pan. Keep pouring until it rises about a finger above the liquid. Stir and step away. That's it. A perfect paella.

paella

• a rabbit
• a chicken
• 3 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• short-grain rice, like arborio
• 1 lb flat green beans
• a large pinch of saffron threads
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Extra virgin olive oil
• artichokes or peas

Saute onion in a pan until translucent. Add tomato, season, and saute for about ten minutes. Blend or pass through a food mill.

Break down rabbit and chicken, cutting meat (thighs, saddle, breasts, etc) into pieces (larger than bite size). Season pieces with salt and pepper.

Heat paella (pan) with oil. Arrange meat in hot pan, allow to brown before turning and moving towards the outside of the paella.  Add the beans, cut in 2 inch pieces, to the center of the pan, allowing to brown, then pushing to the outside. Add the garlic and then the tomato sauce, allowing it to simmer for a bit.  Then mix everything together and fill the paella pan with hot water up to the screws. Salt generously (you want it to be oversalted). Let it simmer for 15-20 minutes until it reduces some.

Add more water up to the screws, maintaining the simmer. Add saffron. Pour rice into paella pan in a straight line along the diameter. When this line peeks above the broth by about a finger's width, you've added enough. Stir it in and cook on low for about twenty minutes. Do not stir anymore. If it looks like it's dry on top, cover with a sheet of newspaper.

cooking los clásicos: costrada

 

A few weeks ago I brought you Baztan sopa, a soaked bread concoction typical of Navarra's mountain cuisine. Well it turns out those thrifty countryside folks really love their soaked bread dishes. I found a recipe for another, called costrada, and decided to try it out. 

The result? A certainty that Americans did NOT invent the breakfast casserole...this dish is toasted bread layered with chorizo and tender, pureed carrots and onions. With a few generous cupfuls of broth, you stick it in the oven and the flavors meld together. Then, to finish it off, you can top it off with a couple eggs.   Its ingredient profile is revealing: bread, root veggies, eggs, chorizo-the stuff that you have laying around the house if you live in a baserri in the mountains. It's a peasant dish. But it sure is delicious.

costrada

• about 15 thin baguette slices
• 15 thin slices of chorizo pamplona
• 2 onions, chopped
• 5 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 1/2 c vegetable stock
• 2-3 eggs

Toast the bread in a hot oven. Boil the onions and carrots in salted water until tender; puree. Lightly fry the chorizo in a little bit of olive oil.

To construct the dish, begin in a 8X4 or thereabouts container, layering one layer each of bread, chorizo, and vegetable puree. Repeat until all the ingredients have been used. Pour over the stock and put in 400 degree oven for about fifteen minutes. Add liquid if you see that it's getting dry.  A few minutes before it's ready, crack eggs over the top and broil until they are set.

cooking los clásicos: menestra

Menestra is a Navarran dish par excellence. At its heart, it is simply a vegetable stew, featuring the most prized products of the region: white asparagus, chard, artichokes and peas.  It´s a staple...you can buy dubious canned and frozen versions in the supermarkets here, which is always a sign of a dish´s ubiquitousness.  Another sign? Ferran Adriá's adaptation from a few years back that includes beet foam and almond sorbet.

What struck me as strange in the preparation was the three different stages of cooking. First you have the individual cooking of each vegetable. Steaming for the artichokes and bainas and then sauteeing for the chard, cooking them very lightly, just until tender. Later, you must pass the artichokes, chard and bainas through an egg and flour wash, frying them all in olive oil. Only then do you combine all the vegetables in one pot, with the rendered meats and a base of cooking liquid that consists of olive oil, wine, and artichoke liquid. 

All in all, it's a wonderful example of a classic Spanish stew that uses the best of late winter/early spring's vegetable offerings.  The artichokes from Tudela in Navarra are famous (they are called Blancas de Tudela), but this stew would be delicious made with American produce, too. Various versions exist, some of which use fresh artichokes instead of bottled or add cauliflower and carrot. Experiment and find your favorite combination.

menestra de navarra

• 6 artichokes
• a cup of frozen peas
• 2 large stems of chard
• a cup of baínas (sugar snap peas if necessary), cut into pieces
  
• 6 white asparagus from a jar, cut into pieces
  
• 3 thin slices of chorizo de pamplona, cut into small squares
  
• 1 thick piece of pancetta, cut into lardons
• 1 cup flour + 1 tbsp
  
•  olive oil
• 3 cup white wine
• 1 cup artichoke cooking liquid
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 eggs
  

To prepare the artichokes, trim and steam in 2 cups of white wine and some water (adding a bay leaf, chili, thyme, whatever you like to make it ADAP->As Delicious As Possible). Reserve the liquid. Cut into quarters.  Thaw frozen peas in warm water. Sautee chard and baínas (separately) in olive oil until tender.

Pass the artichokes through an egg wash then the flour, then cook in hot olive oil until golden. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with beans and chard, tossing the best you can and frying in oil. Messy but important.

Next, heat 2 Tbsp olive oil and render chorizo and ham. Then add 1 cup of wine and a cup of the artichoke liquid. Add a tablespoon of flour, stirring well and allowing to cook a bit. Add a pinch of salt, then add the various vegetables, finishing with the asparagus. Bring back to the boil.  Add chicken broth as needed, because you want your liquid to reduce a bit but you still want some to scoop up with your bread.

Accompany with rosé or red wine.

patatas a la riojana

An empty pantry.

It means different things in different countries. In the US, for me, it usually means a "slop" (code for beans and rice and cheese and hot sauce all mushed and mixed together).

In Spain, an empty pantry takes on a new meaning. We currently have one, and our past few meals have been: vegetable paella, pasta with tomato frito and cheese, and tortilla Española. But things are getting really bad, really empty.That means--

patatas a la riojana.

Because in a Spanish kitchen, there's always a HUGE bag of potatoes. And definitely always onions and wine. Oh, and don't forget that musty link of cured meat that you bought a while back and forgot about.  Et voila! All the ingredients of this dish, which hails from the nearby Rioja region (and pairs perfectly, I might add, with red wine).  It's humble, but it's rich and, as happens with so many stews, a lot better than its original components.

patatas a la riojana

• about 10 small potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks or coins
• one small onion, chopped
• two cloves garlic, minced
• a green pepper or two, if you have it (I used Pimientos de Padrón)
• a link of Spanish chorizo (dulce or picante), sliced
• a cup of white wine
• dash of paprika
• a bay leaf (optional)
• a dried chile (optional)
• a few tbsps of olive oil
• water to cover

Heat oil over med. heat. Add onion and garlic, saute for about 10 minutes, until soft. Add potato pieces and more oil if necessary, seasoning with salt and pepper. Saute another ten or so minutes.  Add chorizo slices, paprika, bay leaf and chile, and saute another couple minutes. Add wine, simmer until well reduced. Add water almost to cover, allow to simmer until reduced to a thick sauce. Taste and season if neccesary.

one hundred year old gumbo

There's nothing like the combination of food, New Orleans, and other people's obsessions to inspire you. It was on a visit here that I encountered a little gem masquerading as a worn, blue hardback entitled Cooking in Old Creole Days. Published in 1903 by Celestine Eustis, it offered an incredible look into the methodology of Creole cooking and the attitude towards culinary arts in the previous centuries. Despite, or maybe in part due to, a remarkable overtly racist prologue ("as a race, we are certainly not gifted with culinary talent") by S. Weir Mitchell, the book is fascinating from start to finish.
I jotted down a recipe for the most basic dish in the Creole repertoire: okra gumbo. I wanted to see how the traditional elaboration compared to what comes out of my pseudo-New-Orleanian family kitchen. So I followed the "receipt" to the best of my abilities-the ambiguity of it I actually found to result in a fun cooking challenge, allowing me to fill in the gaps with my own knowledge and whims.
And...most importantly...the gumbo was delicious! Chip proclaimed it amazing, and I thought it tasted quite good as well. A fairly easy meal. I do have to say I like my dad's darker, more Cajun gumbo better, but that could just be due to another tradition that dates back hundreds of years: a strong loyalty to your own flesh and blood's roux.

okra gumbo

Put into a saucepan a spoonful of pure lard* and one of flour. Stir it well until it is of a light brown. Chop an onion into small pieces and throw them in. Cut up a fat capon or chicken into small pieces and put it into the saucepan with the flour and lard. Stir it all the while until the chicken is nearly done. When the whole is well browned, add a slice of ham* cut up small. Throw in two or three pods of red pepper*, and salt to your taste. Then add a quart of boiling water, and leave it on the fire for two hours and a half.

During that time you take either a can of okra or the fresh okra, and chop it up a bit. Put it in a saucepan with a little water and let it simmer a quarter of an hour, stirring it all the time. Then add to it either six fresh tomatoes or half a can of tomatoes, and let it cook on a slow fire for an hour, uncovered.

When your gumbo has been on the fire the two hours and a half, you take it off to cool, and skim all the grease off. Then you put it back in the saucepan and add your okra and tomatoes and let it simmer slowly for an hour or until the okra is thoroughly cooked. Serve hot, and eat it with dry rice served in a separate dish.
-Mme. Eustis, Mére.

*for the lard, I used butter. for ham, I used andouille. for the red pepper, I used chile de arbol.