Friday, January 20, 2006

Paella

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.

8 comments:

cookiecrumb said...

I'm trying to imagine what your monthly saffron bill must be...

Anonymous said...

I love paella. Isn't there some tradition it should only be made by men. I make a pretty tasty one from a recipe I found in an 80's Vogue magazine.

Chubby Hubby said...

Great photo! Very Nigel Slater. I can't wait to read about your trip to Spain.

Anonymous said...

Everything tastes better when you are sitting surrounded by the Moorish tile walls of El Rinconcillo. Quintessentially Sevillano. Your paella looks great, but what I really want to get my hands on are those chorizos de Jabugo!

Anonymous said...

Hi Monkey Gland,

Just got to your blog after meeting on Foodography. Your paella looks very nice! I myself cook it in a big paella dish actually, bought in Spain. Not easy to carry around! Need to mention I really like your blog, will visit often!

Anonymous said...

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Sam said...

What happened to the London theme? That didn't last long. I had peruvian paella yesterday. It uses coriander instead of saffron.

Shauna said...

Oh, this looks gorgeous. I wish I could have some right now.