LUNCH WITH A VIEW

 

On a bright but hazy day, small boats and a kite-surfer are lost in the mist. (Benalmádena Costa)

Restaurant Parador Playa perches above a small cove with wooden steps leading down to a strip of beach. On this afternoon the sun filters through a haze that almost obscures the horizon. The view is so stunning that, for a few minutes, I forget about lunch. But, then I catch a whiff of sardines grilling and I am hungry.  

We have been invited by friends to the soft opening (actually, a re-opening, after remodelling) of the beach restaurant, Parador Playa, in Benalmadena Costa (Málaga province). Francis Muñoz, chef and owner of the family restaurant, proudly shows off his gleaming new kitchen, and wine cellar. Beautifully laid tables are open to sea breezes, but the space has sliding glass enclosures for less perfect weather.  

Fresh fish and shellfish, straight off the boats at local ports.

Our host, Chris Gil, a regular at Parador Playa, orders a sampling of dishes—all seafood—for guests at the table to share. I had been craving boquerones fritos, a platter of fried fresh anchovies, so typical of Málaga. “Sorry, the new deep fryer requires a high-voltage cable and they’re still waiting for the installation,” said Chris. There were a few other pre-opening kinks. The staff, always gracious, was getting used to new electronic devices for taking orders, which led to our enjoying two versions of tuna tartar. 

Nadia Gil and friends, pre-lunch nibbles.

The menu, which changes seasonally, depends on absolutely fresh seafood—straight off the fishing boats in local ports. Chef Francis has elaborated a menu based on the traditional Málaga kitchen to which he has added a flair for Japanese influences. This is particularly noticeable in the section of the menu labelled crudo, or raw entrees, which includes several versions of tartar and sashimi. 

These are quisquillas served raw, bodies peeled, with their intensely deep blue roe, lightly dressed with extra virgin olive oil. I spent hours searching for the exact name for quisquillas (Plesionika edwardsii). Let's just call them "small shrimp" or "blue-bellies." Their flavor is delicate, redolent of the sea, an exquisite bite.

Clams on the half-shell.

I adore these conchas finas which were ordered especially for me! Served raw, they are firm, somewhat chewy, flavorful. Although these clams are a Málaga trademark, experts say they are disappearing from local waters, not from over-fishing but due to climate change and coastal dredging for beach restoration.

Ensaladilla rusa--potato salad with octopus.

 This is a stunning version of a tapas bar classic,  ensaladilla rusa or Russian salad. The flavorful potatoes are bound with a mayonnaise-like sauce, very rich and light at the same time, and topped with pulpo a la gallega, tender chunks of cooked octopus in Galician pimentón sauce. 

Although Parador Playa is many steps above the sandy beach, these sardines are prepared as traditional espetones, skewered and grilled on coals. I eat them with my fingers but some guests used knife and fork. 

We sampled two versions of tuna ventresca, rich belly meat, the first (above) with tuna in unctuous ajo blanco (white gazpacho) and topped with caviar and the second with diced tomatoes and house-made potato chips (below).  I preferred the version with tomato and those crispy chips. 

Two ways with small cuttlefish: Plancha-grilled (top) and (below) with mayonnaise swirled with cuttlefish ink. Small cuttlefish are called chocos, chopitos, or puntillitas (although small squid also are called puntillitas). 

Sobremesa--a Spanish custom--that delicious post-prandial time for conversation or just enjoying the beauty of a Mediterranean afternoon on the terrace of Parador Playa. The restaurant has an amazing list of desserts with a variety of unusual chocolates. The coffee is excellent. Some might enjoy a Pacheran, a sloe-berry and anis inflected liqueur served over ice.

The Parador Playa menu features eight different rice dishes (arroces--not called paella, although they are served in a paella pan), including the "daily surprise." (I once described it as the best paella rice I've ever eaten.)They must be ordered 24 hours in advance. There are a couple of meat dishes (retinto steak, baby lamb chops), but the point of view, literally and gastronomically, is the sea.  

Parador Playa is now open for regular service, noon to 8 pm, Wednesday through Sunday, until the end of October. (Check with Reservations about later dates.)

Reservations: https://paradorplaya.com/   +34 951 264 931

 

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PAELLA: BUILDING FLAVOR

 

Arroz de carabineros. (Photo: Josh Elliott)

I´ve eaten a lot of paellas in my time, from the classic València version, with rabbit and snails, cooked on a wood fire in the rice fields of the Albufera, to a rustic Andalusian campo one where we picked the fava beans and peas from the nearby huerta to add to the rice with chicken and shrimp. I’ve made my share of paellas too, some pretty good.  

But the best paella rice I’ve ever eaten was at a beach restaurant on the Costa del Sol, a glorified chiringuito. We ordered arroz de carabineros, rice cooked in paella (the typical flat pan is called “paella” as is the rice cooked in it) with jumbo red shrimp. It contained almost no protein matter. The shrimp had been reduced to essence giving the perfectly cooked rice intense flavor. The arroz was served topped with a few pieces of the barely cooked carabineros plus their heads, for sucking. No baroque garnishes. No sauce. No lemons. Arroz in its purest form.

I vowed to try to make rice that good. Because it’s World Paella Day (September 20), today I took up the challenge. 

My arroz--rice in paella with shrimp. Flavor is fantastic, texture pretty good. I served cosas, accompaniments, as side dishes. 

What I learned about building flavor can be applied to any rice cooked in paella, including more elaborate ones with chicken, squid, clams, shrimp, artichokes, beans, etc. There are three steps—a sofrito, the foundation for building flavor; a fish/shellfish stock, and the cooking of the rice. 

Sofrito, first step in building flavor.

Sofrito 

This is where flavor begins so make the sofrito as intense as possible. If possible, cook shrimp heads, small crabs, squid bits, etc., with the vegetables, puré the sofrito, shells and all, then push the thick sauce through a fine sieve. Lacking crustaceans, add a few canned anchovies to contribute umami to the basic sauce. This recipe makes enough sofrito for three or four paellas. It can be prepared in advance of cooking the rice and refrigerated or stored in the freezer.

Makes about 2 ¼ cups sofrito.

2 ¼ pounds ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

2 cups chopped onions

½ to 1 cup chopped green peppers

4 cloves chopped garlic

¼ cup white wine

2-3 anchovy fillets, chopped (optional)

2 teaspoons smoked pimentón (paprika)

Sprig of thyme

1 bay leaf

Sprig of parsley

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Heat oven to 400ºF.

Place the tomatoes on a rimmed sheet pan, drizzle them with oil and roast them until very soft, about 30 minutes. (Alternatively, drop the tomatoes in a pot of boiling water until the skins begin to split. Drain.) When tomatoes are cool enough to handle, cut out cores and slip off the skins. You should have approximately 3 cups of tomatoes.

Heat ¼ cup of oil in a pan. Sauté the onions on medium-high until they begin to brown around the edges, 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons of water and continue sautéing until the water cooks away and onions begin to sizzle again. Add the peppers and garlic and sauté 5 minutes more. Add the anchovies, if using. Add the wine and cook 1 minute to cook off the alcohol. 

Use kitchen scissors to cut the tomatoes into pieces. Add them to the pan with the thyme, bay, parsley, salt and pepper. Fry the tomatoes on high heat 2 minutes. Lower the heat and cook the sofrito, covered, 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover the pan and cook 10 to 15 minutes more until the sofrito is quite thick. Discard the bay leaf and parsley.

Puré the sofrito with a hand-held blender. Set aside ¾ cup of sofrito for use in the paella. Divide the remainder in half and store in the refrigerator or freezer for future use.

Fish Stock

Caldo de Pescado

Fish head for the stock pot.

Along with sofrito, a flavorful fish stock is essential for this rice dish. This can be freely varied, depending on what shellfish and fish trimmings are available. I lucked out, my local fish vendor gave me a whole mero (grouper) head that was lurking in her deep freeze. I made the stock with just the head, no shrimp shells. You can also use clam broth or store-bought stock. Use wine, lemon, herbs, aromatics and sufficient salt. Reduce the stock somewhat so that it’s a powerful cooking medium for the rice. Here’s a basic recipe for Fish Stock.

Rice with Shrimp in Paella

Arroz al Marinero

Unlike traditional paella, this arroz starts on top of the stove and is finished in the oven. If you want socarrat, the crunchy rice on the bottom, you will need to return the pan to the stove-top after the oven.

Size matters. I used a 34-centimeter (13.3-inches) paella pan for 2 cups of rice (400 grams/ 14 ounces), serving 6. This size fits on a large burner of an induction stove and into a normal oven. The cooked rice reached a depth of 1 ½ inches. The restaurant version was made in a similar size pan, but with half the quantity of rice and liquid, changing the timing, the texture of the rice and the yield. I’ll try that method next time, using a thinner layer of rice for the same pan diameter, and see how it changes the rice. 

Use a medium-short grain rice, sometimes called “round rice,” for paella. València varieties include Bahia, Senia, Marisma and Bomba. They are similar to Italian risotto rice, but, unlike risotto, paella rice is never stirred during cooking. 

Serves 6.

1 pound heads-on shrimp

¼ cup olive oil + additional if needed

¾ cup sofrito

½ teaspoon saffron threads

2 cups medium-short-grain rice

4 ½ cup fish or shellfish stock, heated (see note below)

Salt if needed

Finely chopped parsley

Cooked romano green beans (optional)

Alioli garlic sauce to accompany (recipe follows)

Shell the shrimp. Save the heads (clip off the antennae) and tails in a covered container. Save the shrimp bodies in another container. Refrigerate them until ready to cook.

Heat the oil in a skillet and add 1 cup (or more) of shrimp heads and tails. 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 shells and discard them. (If you do this step in advance of preparing the rice, the fried shrimp heads can be added to the fish trimmings to make the stock.)

Preheat oven to 425ºF.

Taste the cooking liquid for salt. 

Place the shrimp oil in the paella pan. Add additional oil to make 2 tablespoons. Heat on medium and stir in the sofrito. Cook it until it begins to darken slightly. Sprinkle the saffron into the pan. Add the rice and mix it until coated with the sofrito.

Bring the stock to a full boil and carefully pour it into the rice. Stir thoroughly. Taste the liquid and add more salt as needed. 

Cook the rice on medium-high for 5 minutes.

Very carefully transfer the rice to the oven for 10 minutes. 

While rice is in the oven, sauté the shrimp bodies in the skillet just until they turn pink. Remove from pan and sprinkle them with chopped parsley.

Taste the rice. It should be al-dente tender, with just a little kernel of resistance in the center. Remove the pan from the oven. (If you want socarrat, place the pan on medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes.) Scatter some of the shrimp on top. Scatter the beans, if using, on the surface. Let the rice set at least 5 minutes before serving.

Lettuce hearts with garlic.

How to serve paella rice. Arroz might be served in its pristine glory, as a primer plato, a starter, to be followed by a main  course of fish, meat or chicken. Or it can be preceded by an assortment of salads and shellfish para picar, to be shared amongst diners at the table. 

I chose to accompany the rice with side dishes to be eaten alongside the rice— sautéed shrimp, fried fillets of gallineta, red rockfish; tiny calamaritos; green beans, sliced tomatoes, and lettuce hearts with fried garlic, piquillo peppers and serrano ham. And, why not? a garlicky alioli sauce. 

Rice is minimally garnished, with side dishes.

Garlic Sauce

Alioli

This is not a true alioli, which is made with only crushed garlic and olive oil. It’s a simple blender mayonnaise with garlic added. Use an immersion blender with a narrow container. (This recipe calls for raw egg.)

1 medium egg, room temperature

½ teaspoon smoked pimentón (paprika)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 clove garlic

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash the egg. Break it into the blender container. Add the pimentón, lemon juice, garlic and salt. Add the oil. Insert the blender blade to the bottom of the container and run the blender on high speed without lifting it until the egg and oil thicken. Then lift the blade to incorporate any oil on the top and move the blender up and down briefly until it is completely incorporated. If desired, thin the alioli with a little warm water. 

Store the sauce refrigerated and use within 3 days.

Finalists in the World Paella Day competition, which takes place annually on September 20 (time of rice harvest) in València with participants from all over the globe, came from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Japan, Romania, Mexico and China. The winner was Joe Padilla from Puerto Rico.

Where we ate the superb rice: Parador Playa, Benalmadena Costa (Málaga).

Where to get all kinds and sizes of paella pans in the U.S.: La Tienda.