Serves 4 to 6 people
After my first trip to Spain, I shipped back a couple of 36-inch, four-handled paella pans for our catering company, J&L. A luxurious seafood paella was one of our customers’ favorites, and I provide that recipe in the Gazette scaled for 4 to 6 people.
Ingredients
Sofrito
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
½ cup sliced shallots
1 Tbl garlic, minced
1 tsp paprika, preferable smoked paprika
1 – 2 large ripe tomatoes, grated
2 cups short to medium grain rice (Spanish rice from Valencia or risotto rice from Italy)
6 cups shellfish stock, lobster stock or 4 cups clam juice diluted with 2 cups water
1 tsp saffron threads, crushed
Mixture of shrimp, mussels, baby octopus or squid and firm-fleshed fish, like halibut or monkfish.
Instructions
Make the sofrito: Slowly cook the onions and shallots until they are translucent. Add the garlic, stirring, just until fragrant. Add the grated tomato and sauté until the oil starts to separate from the mass of seasoned tomato.
Bring the stock to a boil and use it to separately poach each type of seafood you are using in the paella. Do not overcook. Set the seafood aside.
Sauté the rice with the sofrito, only until the rice is translucent and you can see the heart of the rice grain. You want to stop stirring before the rice is opaque.
Add the boiling stock and give just one stir to bring the whole pan to a boil and then reduce the heat. Cook the pan on top of the stove until the rice is just peeking through the simmering liquid, approximately 10 minutes. Rotate the pan occasionally, so the stock is evenly absorbed. Bury whatever seafood you are using in the rice and place the pan in the oven.
The rice will need approximately 15 minutes in a 350ºF oven.
Let the rice rest, out of the oven and covered with foil, for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. If you want, return the pan to the flame on top of the stove to create the socarret.
Just before serving, garnish with fresh lemon, finely chopped parsley, or strips of roasted piquillo peppers.
Because the crew at J&L was heavily Vietnamese, a favorite at our own parties was a creation we called Vietnamese Paella. We used ginger and dried shrimp in the sofrito rather than tomato, and peanut oil rather than olive oil. For the broth we used a strong chicken stock and for the meats, we used some combination of shrimp, Chinese sausage, roasted pork or duck from the Asian market, garnished with Thai basil.