Paella Recipe from Spain

One of the highlights of our trip was the Paella making class.  We went to the fish market to pickup the fresh fish.  We helped clean and prepare the fish.... let me tell you preparing squid is cool!  There is a plastic looking spine and a tooth?!  Mara, the cooking instructor, was full of energy and spunk and handled us, a rowdy crowd, well :).  She made us plenty of Sangria and taught us the history of Paella.  Paella stands for pan for her.  It was customary for the women to cook every day, however on the weekends the men would cook for the wives.  They would make a large pan of paella together outside and to feed theirs wives and family. 

Now, on to the recipe.  I took it right from the website. www.travelbar.com/paella-recipe/ .  I tried converting most of it to Imperial amounts.  Europeans use the metric system and we, Americans use the Imperial system.

Ingredients

* feeds 15+ people! 

• 200/250g Prawns/Shrimps (about 1/2 a lb)
• 100/150g Clams (1/3 lb)
• 250g Mussels (a little over 1/2 lb)
• 200g Calamari rings, head and tentacles.(1/2 lb)
• Olive oil. 
• 1.5 Onions, 1 green and ½ red peppers, chopped small.
• 1 cup Green peas.
• Parsley (don’t chop it with your knife, just irregular pieces with your hands).
• Garlics (4 full pieces, just to flavor the pan with the olive oil).
• 2 Tomatoes, blended.
• 500/600g of Arborio Rice (same as Risotto, if you don’t want a mashy Paella). (1 and 1/4 lb)
• ½ l. Fish stock. (I looked up what I. stands for and could not find it.  We used two 32 oz stock containers)
• 200cc White wine (a little less than 1 cup)
• Warm water (enough to cover every grain of rice).
• The Soul of Paella, the spicies:
  • 2 tbs  sweet paprika,
  • ¼ tbs of sea salt,
  • 2 generous pinches of black pepper,
  • 1 tbs turmeric, or less. Then color can be corrected.
  • 3 bay leaves. 
  • ¼ g saffron.

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Procedure:

• Cover the bottom of the pan with olive oil, heat and slightly fry the garlics for a minute.
• Add the veggies and cook them slowly until the onions appears translucent. No salt needed now. 
• Add the calamari. Heads and tentacles first, then the rings. Cook all of them on high heat for 4 mins,
• Cut parsley with your hands on top of the ingredients.
• Add clams. Remember to check they should be wide open between 35/45 degrees when you eat them.
• Gather all the ingredients in the middle of your pan. Do repetitive circles to share temperature and mix the ingredients.
• Stop the cooking process of calamari for a while getting the cold white wine in the middle of your pan, far away from the fire. You don’t wanna burn your eye lashes with a spoiled flame!
• Evaporate at least 80% of the alcohol.
• Add mussels in the middle of your pan. Cold tomato sauce on top of mussels is the second cold liquid we use to cool down temperature of seafood and not overcook it!
• Gather ingredients in the middle again, do the circles with wooden spoon and make a puddle adding warm water.
• Proceed to incorporate and dissolve the spicies. Remember where the good quality of saffron is coming from and sprinkle some of that capsule you got in the famous Boquería’s Market!
• Flavor every little small part of the pan, change the colour of all ingredients.
• Add your prawns. You later decide whether to suck the head or not!
• Add the rice, a handful per person, plus one for the pan (or a kilo every 10 pax), cook for a minute ensuring it doesn’t stick at the bottom with the wooden spatchulla.
• Add the peas (or asparagus in the clock position to make more fancy and charming!).
• Add 3.5lts of warm water and fish stock per kilo of rice. Important: the water should cover every little small grain of rice.
• Terms to cook the rice:



Sangria making. TRES! haha

• 15/18mins.
• High heat for 7 mins.
• Medium heat for the last 3 mins.
• Always should be an empty hole in the middle of your pan in order not to burn the rice.
• If you do not have the rings of fire and use normal stove: move the pan every 2 mins, North, South, East and West while you drink your homemade Sangría!
• Never stir the rice, you are not cooking Risotto mate! 😉
• Wait 3 more mins while you reflect on your memories on your unique trip to beautiful Barcelona, Gaudi, Parc Güell, the beach and your amazing cooking class!
• Get garnish: lemon wedges, love and fresh parsley on top.

Again, this recipe was taken right from the website.  Reading it sounds just like our cook, Mara.  She was so fun!  

I am going to try to make the paella again soon for 5-6 people.  I will post the smaller ingredient portions then!