Paella

You'd have thought I'd have eaten enough Spanish food over the last few days (I'll get to that later in the week), but having arrived from the airport I unpacked and went straight to the kitchen to give my new gleaming paella dish a trial run. A couple of kilos of Calasparra rice came with me, as well as a couple of ruby red Chorizos de Jabugo, so I was pretty much set up for dinner the minute I walked in the door. I was attempting to recreate the rice I had eaten at a bar in Seville called "El Rinconcillo", the very bar where, according to legend, tapas where invented and celebrating its 335th year in business. It was all in the "sofrito" I'd been told, the slow softening of onion, garlic and peppers in the paellera. I was also given some wise words by the barman. Since a paella refers to the pan and not the dish itself, anything you cook in it can be deemed to be a paella, so don't' get too stressed out about making it authentic. That was for people from Valencia. Then again, I've been making it in a thin frying pan for years and it has always been fine. So as usual, horses for courses. Check out the recipe for this in the Moro cookbook, they have a very good understanding of what makes a good rice, be it a paella or a pilav.