Busy Sunday

[pfuentes69]

Nothing better for a cold Sunday… recapping an old Mac and cooking a Paella

 

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Loves me some paella! Very nice looking

Here’s the last paella Valencia I made over the summer. I like to do them outside over wood coals in my paella pan but this one I did a fired clay tajin in the oven.

I think my fav protein ingredients combos for a paella are a mix of:

Chorizo, fresh rabbit and chicken, braised pork chunks
Chorizo, bacon, fresh white fish, shrimp, squid, mussels, clams, bay scallops

Man makes me hungry for an over the fire Paella. I admit that I have not mastered the recap-a-mac + paella wheel house yet. The only multitasking I can muster while making paella is drinking wine.

*On a side note, I love the texture you captured in the photo. The lighting is great.

 

[pfuentes69]

I think my fav protein ingredients combos for a paella are a mix of:

Chorizo, fresh rabbit and chicken, braised pork chunks
Chorizo, bacon, fresh white fish, shrimp, squid, mussels, clams, bay scallops

I'm from Valencia, Spain, which is the birthplace of the Paella. The traditional recipe has only chicken, rabbit and three types of beans, sometimes also artichoke if it's the season... But there are many variants, which we don't call "Paella", but "Rice". In fact what I did today was more "Rice with seafood", but we call it also "Paella de marisco".
To cook this at home, I use this:

This allows to use a large pan at home, using gas.

And, once you asked the other day about budget wine, I had the rice today with this one, also from the Valencia region:

This is maybe 7 or 8 euros in the supermarket, and is really nice.

 

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My friend has a similar style propane burner which has telescoping legs that he uses on his back patio T'd off from his grills propane tank. What beans do you put in the paella? I've had it many times and never once with beans. (granted all Stateside as I have not made it to Europe) so Americanized somewhat in that regard I'm sure - still tasted great regardless . Anyhow, some beans in the mix sounds great to me. I always thought in my head that a starchy, white butter bean would be really good in Paella.

I'll keep an eye out for that wine. We get a lot of imported Spanish and Portugese wines around here for some reason so chances are good I could run into it.

 

[pfuentes69]

Well... you have good intuition, as a type of butter beans are key in the traditional recipe.
In principle, there are two that can't be missed... The first one is a kind of green bean, that is used with the pod and we call "Bajoqueta". This is not too easy to find here in Switzerland, but as I live near the French border, I can always find it in the supermarket there. Frenchs call it "Haricot Coco":

The other one that must be there is a local variant of the butter bean, that is very difficult to find outside Valencia. It's dried and it must be rehydrated for at least 48h. We call it "Garrofon".

Then there are one or two more that can be used, but typically I don't put it as are impossible to find here. One is named "Tabella", and it's used like the "Garrofon".

You'd cook the vegetables, with grated tomato, adding to the meat that needs to be fried at the beginning, and frying for 5 more minutes, before adding the water to make the soup. This is from my last traditional Paella:

Here I did a bit of cheating, as I added to the water some vegetable broth, as it's not easy to make a good soup to cook the rice in an small paella (I use a pan for 10 rations, but I make it for 4 people, so it has a thin layer of rice. This one ended nicely:

 

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Huh, so those red and white pods are very similar to a bean we grow in the midwestern US called cranberry beans. I like them stewed with corn kernels and smoked ham hocks. They have a slight sweetness to them which is nice. I bet those could be used. The Garrofon I have never seen Stateside, so I guess I would sub a domestic dried butterbean. Those green beans look like what Ive seen referred to as an Italian flat green bean (in fact have grown them in my garden a few years back - the seed variant was "Romano"). I could probably sub those in as well. Now I have to source a new rabbit farmer for fresh local rabbit. The gent I bought hares from moved far enough away for it to be an inconvenient source unfortunately.

The dish pictured above looks great as well. I am pumped to try one out with the rehydrated beans & romanos - one that reflects more the ecology & local foods of the interior vs coastal spaces.

 

[pfuentes69]

I am pumped to try one out with the rehydrated beans & romanos - one that reflects more the ecology & local foods of the interior vs coastal spaces.

I like all sort of rices, but nothing better than a well cooked traditional paella.

The key is ensuring a rich broth before adding the rice. Typically you'd calculate the right level of liquid you need to cook the rice and then you add a lot of additional water, so the broth is made until it evaporates to the desired level, for maybe one hour, and then you add the rice to cook for about 20 minutes. This is complicated on small paellas, as there aren't enough meat and vegetables, so I add about a litre of vegetable broth to the water.

Also, regarding the meat we add the liver and kidney of the chicken and the rabbit, so it adds more taste (in most cases we eat those when are well charred before adding the water, as part of the cooking tradition, which involves good beer or wine while preparing the dish in group), and adding a piece of duck is also a good idea, but not too much or it will take over all the taste. Also we add a branch of rosemary during the boiling of the rice, being careful of removing it before the end without leaving leaves.

And the final mastery comes by finding the right cooking for the rice. A perfect paella will have the rice well done, not exploded nor glued together, and the grains of bottom of the paella should be crispy, like caramelised with the fats, but not to the point of tasting like burnt. This is something I don't master yet...

If you try this, ensure you post here a photo!

 

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Well, the rice I have right now is a sack of Santo Tomas and a bag of Fallera Bomba Rice. I've also used Italian Arborio as well in a pinch. I've read about the soccarrat crust. I have not been able to produce this with the indirect heat of an oven, although I have gotten ok results over coals - nothing that I would say I nailed but it did start to form in the center of the pan (and was absolutely delicious). Thinking over the process, my assumption is that a lower heat with longer time over direct heat of a gas flame or coals is what is needed to produce the crust without over cooking the dish. That's my thought on it anyhow. I will definitely share pictures of the next time I do a Paella. Maybe this one Ill do the beans, some Spanish chorizo, chicken and some mushrooms. That sounds good to me. I am in the habit of making stocks at home and currently have about 60 or so ounces of turkey stock in my fridge made from last weeks Thanksgiving holiday turkey carcass and frozen veg/fruit scraps I collect from daily cooking. Maybe I'll use that to add an interesting note of flavor/depth to the dish.