Paella

Paella - the finished product

So I stepped out of my culinary comfort zone again last week - to make a Spanish paella.  It wasn’t quite as easy as I thought, especially since recipes found online rarely are accurate, if ever.  It’s why I prefer cooking by instinct (Italian cooking) or by reading recipes in books written by celebrated food experts like Julia Child and Jacques Pepin that were written long before any idiot could contribute to online recipes.  And most regrettably, a great many of the inaccurate recipes are posted by “celebrity chefs” that people have come to rely on over the past decade or so.  It isn’t fair to those who really don’t have a natural feel for what’s going on in their kitchens, because they put their faith in these so called experts and their recipes and instructions, and end up with disasters - which translate to inedible dishes, lost time and energy, expensive ingredients ruined, and damaged confidence in the kitchen.  It’s precisely why, when I post a request to my facebook wall asking for a recipe, I specifically ask for recipes you use at home, that are tried and true - NOT internet recipes.

Chicken with dry rub

I’ve had paella lots of times, and I love it.  It’s great any time of the year, but I especially love it in the summer, my favorite time for eating shellfish.  Rice, I’ll be perfectly honest, isn’t my thing, and I only eat it when I make risotto.  But this time I’d eat it, since it was a huge part of the paella.  And believe it or not, the rice ended up being the tricky part, both flavor and texture - thanks to what I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty, is a faulty online recipe from a celebrated chef.  Lucky thing I know textures well enough to fix it, at least as well as I possibly could.  The rice was short grain Spanish rice and I cooked it with dry Spanish white wine and chicken stock.  Basically, you’ve got to add liquid ingredients to rice gradually when making that style of rice, at least I think so, otherwise you don’t really know exactly how much you’ll need to get the proper texture.  And that recipe didn’t call for nearly enough salt - when I began tasting it, I decided it had almost no flavor at all.  You be the judge when you’re cooking - you decide how much you need to season something with salt (or black pepper, within reason) - that’s why I love when a recipe tells us to season something “to taste” - only you know your own taste and the tastes of those for whom you’ve prepared the dish - so trust yourself!

Rice cooking with vegetables

Anyway, good chorizo sausage went into it, as did some crazy good chicken (I only buy chicken from the local butcher now, as supermarket chicken has gotten increasingly disgusting and I see no excuse for poor quality chicken in my dishes) - I seasoned it with a dry rub of sea salt, black pepper, oregano, and paprika.  After letting the flavors work together for a while, I sauteed it.  Outrageously good.  The seafood was sauteed shrimp (again, the recipe didn’t call for seasoning of the shrimp, which to me is flat out nonsense), mussels, and clams (all from the local fish monger - please don’t buy the fish at supermarkets - you’ll thank me once you’ve become accustomed to buying at a small shop that has better control over where the fish comes from and how they’re stored, etc.)  Other ingredients included fresh lemon, garlic, onion, peas, parsley, and tomato - and of course, saffron, my favorite Spanish flavor.  Im pretty sure that’s all there was to it.  I also decided I need a paella pan to make this dish next time (and many more times), as I think it’ll be easier than making it in 2 large-but-not-large-enough pans.

White Rioja - oxidized Viura

My advice?  Find someone who has some experience with this dish and ask that person for his/her recipe.  Don’t follow some internet recipe if Spanish cooking isn’t within your comfort zone.

Now, for the wine.  I chose a Spanish wine of course.  When you think of Spanish whites, if you think of them at all, you probably think of Albarino.  And I do enjoy a fresh young Albarino with shellfish.  But this time I wanted something with a little (read: a lot) more depth.  So I chose the R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Gravonia - it’s a controlled oxidized white made from 100% Viura grapes, from Rioja.  And it’s one of my favorite Spanish wines.  This one was vintage 2002.  Funky, salty, stony, and mature, it’s a perfect pairing for many chicken or fish dishes (this dish being both) - plus some fun Spanish cheeses - Mahon and Drunken Goat.  Perfect.