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.

a guiri paella

Whether you look at a paella and think "wow!" or "that's like Spanish pizza", or "that looks difficult" (like I used to) or "that looks easy", it probably is the most emblematic Spanish thing besides bulls. In fact, whenever I want to make somebody from Spain laugh, or whenever they talk about Americans and their hamburgers, I let them know that for us, they are all lounging around eating paella, drinking sangria, and watching bullfights.

So to some, it may seem incredible that I've never gotten around to making one. But really, it's not. For one, it requires special equipment, something that always deters me. In this case, a huge round pan the size of four burners. For two, I'd never really had a good paella, since 99% of my "Spanish" experiences have actually been Basque.

Having crossed the battlefield, I'm happy to report that paella is a)delicious and b)not so hard. I threw caution to the wind and invited three friends over for dinner on my first night. Lucky for me, one of them has a grandmother with extensive paella experience. She was able to advise me on some small changes to the recipe I was working with, like throw the red peppers in with the green instead of waiting until the rice is half-cooked.

For all its infamy and the fear it strikes in anglo-saxon hearts in the kitchen, paella is housewife-friendly. After all, the bulk of the cooking is no-stir, no-touch. Compared to a risotto, for example, it's relatively labor-light. No hay más misterio.

Except for the socarrat. That lovely golden crust that everyone (even people who've never had paella and have no idea what they're talking about) will rave about. It forms on the bottom of the pan, but it has to happen in perfect time and slowly, so the rice is done as the crust begins to form (and you don't add more liquid and deglaze the crust). And you can't really cheat too much by turning up the heat, or it has more of a burned taste. My friend was standing with me at the stove, and she suddenly goes "that's it, that's it, that's it!". Her nose knew, and you could hear, when the rice was forming that delicious golden brown layer.

Beyond that, it's up to you. I showed a friend from here (Basque, though, so not quite an authority) a picture of the paella, and his response was "too many things". The word "aberration" was floated in regards to the chorizo. In fact, strictly speaking, the original Valencian paella is chicken or rabbit, green beans, snails, and fresh lima beans. But c'mon, I'm a guiri. And it tasted pretty dang good.

 paella

• a hake head (or other white fish)
• 9 oz raw, unpeeled shrimp
• 7 oz olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded chopped
• 2 lb mussels (or 1 1/2 lb clams)
• 1 green pepper, seeded and chopped into 1" pieces
• 1 squid, cleand and cut into rings
• 1lb 5oz rounded rice (bomba, or medium grain)
• 1 thick slice garlic
• 3 sprig fresh parsley
• large pinch saffron threads
• sprig of thyme
• 1 chile de arbol
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 chopped shallots
• 2 cups white wine
• 2 tbsp warm water
• 1 red pepper, seeded and cut into strips
• 4 oz of frozen peas
• 1/2 Spanish chorizo, skinned and sliced
• salt
• lemon wedges

Peel the shrimp. Put the heads and shells of the shrimp and the fish head in a pot over high heat with lots of water (a potful, if you have to measure, somewhere around a gallon). Add a pinch of salt, simmer for 15 minutes. 

Heat half the oil over low heat, and cook onions for about 5 minutes, seasoning with salt. Add the tomato, and cook for five more minutes or until all is softened.

Soak and clean mussels, removing beard and cleaning shells. Heat a little bit of oil over high heat, add shallots, thyme, bay leaf and chile. Cook one minute. Add mussels and a pinch of salt, stir and shake for a few seconds, then add the white wine. Cover, and cook until they steam open. Drain, reserving liquid. Add shrimp stock to this liquid until you have about 8 cups. Reserve the remainder of the shrimp stock for later. Heat the liquid mixture until almost boiling.

Heat the tomato onion mixture in paella pan. Add the remaining oil and the red and green peppers, cook about 5 minutes. Add squid rings and rice, as well as another pinch of salt, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, pound parsley, minced garlic, and saffron in a mortar until homogenous. Add a bit of warm water.

Add the hot liquid mixture to the rice, stir. Add the parsley saffron mixture , stirring. Stir in the shrimp and allow to cook. Once half the liquid is absorbed, arrange the shellfish, chorizo, and peas attractively on top of the paella and cook until the liquid is absorbed. It may be necessary to add more liquid as you near the end, just taste the rice and monitor it until you get a feel for it. In total, it seems to take around 30 minutes. You can also cover it with foil the last few minutes to ensure even cooking of the top rice. Remove the paella from heat and cover with a towel while it rests for 5 minutes. Serve with slices of lemon.

zucchini ribbon risotto

This post is vintage. Not just because everything in it you see (except for the food) is probably about 60 years old, since we're in our new-old apartment in the parte vieja of San Sebastián. It's vintage too because it harks back to the old days, when I blogged from Birmingham about delicious if random food I made.  One of my best friends recently commented that she always pulls from my "old recipes". So here's a throwback post....and one that reflects what we eat on a daily basis at home even when we're here in Basque Country.

Arborio rice smuggled from Italy, some of the gigantic zucchini from La Bretxa, and risotto skillz from Bottega...all combine to result in a delicious, perfect risotto. Whenever my friends and I have a daily rant about some aspect of gastronomy, one of my favorite blanket statements is "I have never had a great risotto in San Sebastián." Except in my kitchen.

zucchini ribbon risotto

• 2 large zucchini, peeled or sliced thinly into ribbons
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• bay leaf
• 1.5 c arborio rice
• 1 cup white wine
• about 6 cups vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup grated Idiazabal (or Parmigiano)
• 1/2 lemon
• olive oil
• butter

Heat some a couple tablespoons of olive oil and butter over high heat. Saute onions and leeks until tender. Add rice and bay leaf, stirring until beginning to be translucent with some pieces toasted. Add wine, stirring until nearly all the liquid has been absorbed. Begin adding the veggie stock, about a cup at a time, following the same process of continual stirring. Add some salt with the first round of stock.

Meanwhile, heat some olive oil over high heat and add zucchini and garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook until tender. Set aside.

After about 30 minutes, when the rice is still slightly al dente but cooked through and the last bit of liquid is nearly absorbed, add a knob of butter, the cheese, juice squeezed from the half lemon, and stir furiously. Let it sit for a few minutes. Taste for seasoning and enjoy!

pintxoak etxean: anchovy fennel toasts

Today's a recipe day...and the recipe du jour is a snack for anytime you have some incredible anchovies on hand. This happens to me more often than it used to, now that Itsas Mendi began to stock their perfect, perfect anchovies at a wine store around the corner from my apartment.

When some friends came over for dinner last week, I decided to make a little snack that came together in the typical slapdash fashion.  Some fresh fennel I had bought lay unused, replaced by some surprise okra from the African store down the street. But you don't just let fresh fennel go to waste, especially not as it's on the Marti's Most Wanted List for Produce Not Usually Found in San Sebastián.  A little cabinet rummaging, and it turns out crunchy, marinated fennel is the perfect accompaniment to a salty, rich anchovy.

anchovy fennel toasts (tostas de hinojo y anchoa)

• crusty bread, sliced and toasted
• anchovies. and i mean good ones.
• 1/2 a fresh fennel bulb, diced
• 3 TBSP white wine vinegar
• 2 TBSP lemon juice
• fronds from the fennel bulb

Marinate the diced fennel immediately in the vinegar and lemon juice.

When ready to serve, top one bread slice with an anchovy or two, then a generous, juicy pinch of fennel. Top with some fronds, and if desired a bit of cracked black pepper.

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.