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.
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| 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
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| Rice with seafood in a paella with artichokes and seaweed. |
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| 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)
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.
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| 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 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)
