CELEBRATE WORLD PAELLA DAY!

 

Rustic, València-style paella.

Get out the paella pan! Heat the olive oil and make a sofrito. Stir in the rice. Will you add chicken or shrimp? Some beans or artichokes? For World Paella Day (September 20), the choice is yours. While the celebration started in València, the home of paella, it has turned into a world-wide affair.

Here are some paella recipes to get you started (click on the titles to link to recipes).

Start by frying the meat and vegetables to build flavor.

Rustic València Paella (pictured above). Here are ingredients and instructions for a fairly authentic Valencian style paella (minus the traditional snails). I tell you what kind of rice to use (no, don't wash it first!) and how to cook it, starting with the all-important sofrito (pictured at left), the frying of meat and vegetables.  

Paella with chicken and seafood.

Paella with Chicken and Seafood. (Paella con Pollo y Mariscos). If you want a showy paella chock full of chicken, shrimp and mussels, here's a classic recipe. This was prepared by guests at a private cooking class in my kitchen.  In Spain, home cooks often use powdered artificial yellow coloring to attain rice with that bright, sunny yellow color.  Real saffron gives inimitable aroma and flavor to the rice, but its yellow coloring is subtle. 

It's all about the rice! Paella with intense flavor.

Rice with Shrimp in Paella (Arroz con Gambas). This version is for purists, those who say, "it's all about the rice." It's not really paella, but simply intensely-flavored rice, without the showy garnishes and with virtually no protein! The instructions tell you how to build flavor with a seafood stock, a slow-cooked sofrito, and, finally, the cooking of the rice and creation of the socarrat, the crispy bottom. This version is finished in the oven, a process that gives the rice that every-grain-separate effect.

Outdoor paella for family and friends.

Family-Style Paella. In Andalusia, where I live, this is an authentic paella—although with clams and shrimp, and no beans, it's not like Valencian paella. This is paella of the domingueros, the Sunday gathering of family and friends at a choza, a rustic country farmhouse. Depending on the season, the paella might include fava beans, peas, artichokes, tomatoes or peppers picked from the huerta, kitchen garden.

Paella rice with cockles, peas.

Rice with Clams (Arroz con Almejas). Some paellas are truly baroque extravaganzas, with a sumptuous assortment of everything from sea, land and sky. Others, such as this dish of rice with clams (cockles), show an almost Zen-like simplicity.  “Un arroz”—“a rice”—is the name for such a rice dish.  'Un arroz' is a rice dish cooked by Mamá in the kitchen, whereas, 'una paella' is a grand event, cooked outdoors by guys. 

Paella recipe in FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS

Vegetable Paella with Picada Topping (Arroz de Verduras). This recipe appears in my latest cookbook, FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS, The Culinary Legacy of Spain, which features recipes with roots in Moorish Spain. The Arabs introduced the cultivation of rice in Spain, but did they invent paella? Perhaps. We know that rice dishes of that era, before modern milling, were more like porridge, sweet or savory, made with pounded grains. Some were made with whole grains combined with meat and vegetables--not unlike paella today. The sofrito for this paella does not contain tomatoes, a vegetable from the New World, unknown in Moorish times. 

I make this all-vegetable paella when I have guests of several persuasions and serve it with a selection of dishes on the side—sautéed shrimp, clams, fried chicken nuggets, squid rings, garlicky chickpeas—as well as alioli garlic mayonnaise. Each person can garnish the paella to suit herself. It may not be authentic, but it makes a festive party dish.

Vegetarian paella with brown rice.

Vegetarian Brown Rice Paella (Paella Vegetariana con Arroz Integral). Authentic paella  is not loaded with protein ingredients—they're present to flavor the rice. This version is without meat, poultry, or seafood. 

I use whole grain brown rice (medium-short grain "round" rice) to boost the protein. I make a vegetarian stock with kelp. Full of flavor, this paella is perfect for a meatless Sunday lunch. Lunch, because the Valencianos, inventors of paella, say you never, ever, eat paella at night! But, that’s your call.

No bones: paella parellada

Boneless Paella (Paella Parellada). The recipe for paella Parellada was supposedly invented in Barcelona in the 19th century for a finicky diner (his surname was Parellada) who didn’t want to mess with fish spines, shrimp shells and chicken bones. It’s a paella mixta, mixed paella, because it includes meat (chicken and sausage), fish (monkfish) and shellfish (shrimp, cuttlefish and mussels). You can use all of these ingredients or pick and choose among them, according to availability, tastes and prep time. 

Dare to add sausage to paella! But, chard?

Paella, My Way (Paella a Mi Estilo). Supposedly, for World Paella Day,  Valencianos grant you an indulgence for adding extraneous ingredients, even sausage, to paella. Mine includes chorizo and red chard along with more typical rabbit.

Seafood Paella with Alioli Garlic Mayonnaise (Arroz al Marinero). What I make when my pescatarian friends are coming for dinner: paella with chunks of monkfish, cuttlefish, and shrimp. I serve it with a garlicky mayonnaise embellished with seaweed. 

An impostor! No rice in this paella.

Low-Carb Paella with Cauliflower "Rice." 

Packed with flavor, this rendition of paella has chicken, chorizo, squid, shrimp, mussels, and artichokes. But no rice. Kernels of cauliflower, flavored with saffron, take the place of rice. It may be an impostor as paella, which, after all, is a rice dish, but it's perhaps the world's best cauliflower!

😉

Black rice.

Black Rice with Squid and Shellfish (Arroz Negro con Mariscos). Unlike the classic Valencian paella, tinged with saffron, this version from Alicante is black with squid ink! Also heretical, as I've included chorizo. So, it's not really paella, it's arroz negro. But I've made it in a paella pan, with Valencian rice, so it's a grand way to celebrate World Paella Day.

Not paella! Baked rice with a crust on top.

Rice with Sausages (Arroz con Costra). This is not paella! Valencia paella has big butter beans, flat green beans, chicken and/or rabbit and/or duck, and snails. Snails! No sausage. But, Valencia has hundreds of other rice dishes. Some of those do contain sausage! Just don’t call them paella!

This one comes from Alicante, where rice is also grown. It’s called arroz con costra, rice with a “crust,” because it’s finished in the oven with a topping of beaten eggs. It can contain two or more types of sausage. 

About Spanish rice. Spanish rice, the kind used for paella, is a round-grained, medium-short variety. Senia, Bahía and Bomba are some of the varietals. (Some have denominación de origen, such as Valencia and Calasparra.) Spanish rice has a white perla (pearl), where the starch is concentrated. Its great virtue is as a flavor conductor, soaking up the savory juices with which the rice cooks—olive oil sofrito, chicken, rabbit or seafood,  saffron. Spanish rice is similar to Italian varieties used for risotto. But the cooking method is totally different. Risotto is stirred to develop the creamy starch. Paella rice, cooked “dry,” is never stirred, as stirring breaks up the starch kernel. 

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Twelve finalists from four continents will compete for the PAELLA WORLD CUP. The event takes place in València starting at 10 am CET (European Daylight Savings), tomorrow, Sunday, September 20. Live streaming at WORLD PAELLA DAY .

Quite a few rice dishes can trace their roots to Moorish Spain. Besides the Vegetable Paella mentioned above, this cookbook, FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS, has two other traditional rice dishes--Country-Style Rice in Cazuela and Baked Rice with Lamb and Egg Topping--as well as a dessert, Creamy Rice Pudding. See below for where to order the book.
 

This cookbook explores the fascinating story of the deep and lasting influences that Islamic culture has left on modern Spanish cooking. 

Author and Spanish cooking expert Janet Mendel tells the story of the Moorish influence on Spanish cooking through 120 recipes and photographs for modern-day dishes, from salads and vegetables to fish, poultry and meat to sweets and pastries, that trace their heritage to foods served in medieval times.  (Hippocrene Books)    

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Use PROMO CODE HIPPOCRENE40 for 40% off on all Hippocrene titles at IndiePubs online bookstore.

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