MY KITCHEN IN SPAIN: AN ALGAE STATE OF MIND

A friend arrived with gourmet gifts from Alaska—chile crisp with kelp (seaweed) and serrano chile salsa with kelp. They got us talking about how to use seaweed in ordinary cooking. I poked around in the cupboard to uncover packets of wakame, kombu, nori and sea spaghetti, all harvested in Spanish waters. So began a week of seaweed as I entered an algae state of mind.

Three edible seaweeds, wakame, sea spaghetti, kelp.

Edible seaweeds add an extra flavor dimension—umami—to any food. Kombu, for example, intensifies the flavor of rich beef broth. But, they are especially appropriate with seafood.

My friends are pescatarians so I made an all-seafood paella, actually arroz al marinero. I used kelp in making the fish stock in which to cook the rice. I added wakame (soaked to rehydrate it) to the rice as it cooked.

Seafood Paella

Arroz al Marinero

Rice with seafood in a paella with artichokes and seaweed.

Sauces with seaweed.

I served the paella with alioli (garlic mayonnaise) blended with more seaweed and the green salsa with kelp straight from the jar. Salsa, if not too chile-hot, while not at all traditional, is an excellent accompaniment to saffron rice.

The recipes for both sofrito and stock (to which I added kombu) are here. They are essential to making deeply flavored rice.

For paella-type rice recipes, use a medium-short-grain variety of rice (such as Bomba). Do not wash the rice. Either stir the rice into the sofrito in the pan then add boiling stock or else bring the stock to a boil in the pan before adding the rice. Cook on medium-high heat for 5 to 8 minutes. Lower stovetop heat (or place the pan in the oven) and do not stir the rice again. When the rice is al dente tender, remove from heat and let it sit in the pan at least 5 minutes before serving.

Make this all-seafood paella with fillets of any white fish plus shrimp. Use squid, cuttlefish, clams or mussels, as desired. Peas, fava beans or cut-up asparagus can be used instead of or in addition to artichokes and green beans.

Serves 4.

4 (3-ounce) fillets of hake or monkfish

Salt, pepper, pimentón

½ ounce dry seaweed such as wakame or sea spaghetti

½ teaspoon saffron threads

¼ cup hot water

1 large artichoke

½ lemon
1 pound heads-on shrimp
¼ cup olive oil + additional if needed
8 ounces small cuttlefish (chopitos), cleaned
¾ cup sofrito (recipe)
2 cups medium-short-grain rice
4 ½ cup fish or shellfish stock, heated (recipe)
Cooked romano green beans (optional)
Alioli garlic sauce with seaweed to accompany (recipe follows)

Salsa with kelp (optional)

Sprinkle the fish with salt, pepper and pimentón. Let it come to room temperature.

Break up the seaweed and place the pieces in a small bowl. Cover with cold water and soak 10 minutes. Drain. Chop the seaweed into ½-inch pieces and set aside. (You may use half of the rehydrated seaweed for the rice and half to make the alioli.)

Crush the saffron in a small bowl. Add the hot water and let it infuse 10 minutes.

Strip outer leaves from the artichoke. Cut it in quarters, scoop out the fuzzy choke, and cook the artichoke in boiling salted water with the juice of ½ lemon until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Peel the shrimp, saving the heads. Discard shells. Refrigerate the bodies until ready to use.

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a paella pan on medium-high. Add the shrimp heads. Fry them until they start to brown, crushing the shells with a wooden paddle to extract all the flavorful juices. Remove the pan from the heat, tip it so that the oil drains to one side and scoop out the heads and discard them.

Preheat oven to 425ºF

Add the cuttlefish to the pan and sauté on medium heat for 2 minutes, turning. Stir in the sofrito. Stir in the rice and cook 1 minute. Add the chopped seaweed, saffron water and the hot stock. Taste the liquid and add more salt as needed. Cook the rice on medium-high for 5 minutes.

Rice finishes cooking in the oven.

Place the fish fillets, quartered artichokes and green beans, if using, in the rice. Very carefully transfer the pan to the oven.

While rice is in the oven, sauté the shrimp bodies in a skillet with 1 tablespoon of oil just until they turn pink. Remove them from the skillet.

Taste the rice after 10 minutes in the oven. It should be al-dente tender, with just a little kernel of resistance in the center. Remove the pan from the oven. Spread the shrimp and oil on top. Cover the rice with a kitchen towel or foil and allow to set at least 5 minutes before serving.

Alioli Garlic Sauce with Seaweed

Alioli con Alga

½ cup prepared mayonnaise
1 to 2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons rehydrated seaweed such as wakame
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon smoked pimentón (paprika)

Combine the mayonnaise, garlic, seaweed, oil, lemon juice and pimentón in a blender. Blend until smooth. Serve immediately or refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve.