The Ultimate Paella
18 Dec
Remember that song that goes, “I’m just mad about Saffron…Saffron’s mad about me….” It’s called Mellow Yellow by Donovan. Anyone remember? Whenever I hear the word saffron, I think of that song. I never even knew what it looked like.. until now!
My cousin J and her hubs J came over the other night with a dutch oven, along with a bunch of ingredients for paella. What kind of guests bring the ingredients and dessert, and help cook the meal? :) The best guests ever!
By the time we were done cooking, we were famished. So we broke out a bottle of wine and ate very happily. It was sooo good!
Recipe: The ultimate paella
Adapted from Tyler Florence
Ingredients:
1 (3-pound) of chicken, cut into 10 pieces
6 cups water, warm (or chicken stock)
4 cups short grain Spanish rice
4 tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 dozen clams, scrubbed
1 pound of scallops
1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and de-veined
1/2 cup sweet peas, frozen and thawed
1 Spanish onion, diced
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped, reserve some for garnish
1 green bell pepper, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Generous pinch saffron threads
Kosher salt (I used seasalt) and freshly ground pepper
Lemon wedges, for serving
Procedure:
1. Rub paprika, oregano and Kosher salt all over the chicken and marinate chicken for 1 hour in the refrigerator. (I didn’t have time to do this).
2. Heat oil in a paella pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken skin-side down and brown on all sides, turning with tongs.
3. Add salt and freshly ground pepper. Remove from pan and reserve.
4. In the same pan, make a sofrito by sauteing the onions, garlic, pepper, and parsley. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes on a medium heat. Then, add tomatoes and cook until the mixture caramelizes a bit and the flavors meld.
5. Fold in the rice and stir-fry to coat the grains. Pour in warm water (or chicken stock) and simmer for 10 minutes, gently moving the pan around so the rice cooks evenly and absorbs the liquid.
6. Add chicken, and saffron.
7. Add the clams and shrimp, tucking them into the rice. The shrimp will take about 8 minutes to cook (if raw).
8. Give the paella a good shake and let it simmer, without stirring, until the rice is al dente, for about 15 minutes.
9. It’s hard not to peek! You don’t want to release all the heat but you can’t tell if it’s cooked or not without peeking!
10. When the paella is cooked and the rice looks fluffy and moist, turn the heat up for 40 seconds until you can smell the rice toast at the bottom, then it’s perfect.
11. Remove from heat and rest for 5 minutes. Garnish with peas, parsley and lemon wedges.
*Cook’s note: The ideal paella has a toasted rice bottom called socarrat.
With the exception of a few things, the paella was delicious!
1: We didn’t read the recipe carefully enough so the rice was unevenly cooked. Next time, we need to pay closer attention 
2: Some of the clams weren’t tucked into the rice, so they didn’t open. It was upsetting since we had so many unopened ones. We boiled it in some water afterwards and salvaged them. It was still very YUM!
3: The recipe says that having some brown on the bottom is good. Ours was more like black:
Does anyone know why the rice burnt, even though we had stock in it the whole time? My guess is that the bottom of the pot needs to be reseasoned.
