Paella | The Foodie Pilgrim

By John, 9 December, 2014

Region

Description

Paella is a traditional Spanish dish. The classic version is the Paella Valenciana, made of rice cooked with saffron and loaded up with shellfish, chicken, and sausage. You can easily vary the recipe to suit the preferences of your diners.

It's a great dish for sharing with a crowd for a festive occasion. It is easy to make and infinitely flexible.

It's scalable, too. This can be a romantic dish cooked outdoors over a fire with a bottle of wine, or a party dish for 20 people and a bucket of Sangria.

You can cook this indoors in a broad, shallow pan, or outdoors on the grill in the traditional way. I wrote about our annual paella-on-the-beach feast here.

The traditional paella pan is wide and shallow, with sloping sides. This allows fast cooking of all the parts of the paella. Here's a link to a typical pan on Amazon.com.

I have a big paella pan that I got from my mother years ago. It's about two feet across and it feeds an army. It had to - I have 5 brothers and sisters! These days I use it at work, preparing the paella on the gas grill on the back patio. It easily feeds 20 people from 2.2 pounds of arborio rice. You can see a photo of it in action in this great article by David Whitford in Inc. Magazine.

Yield

6 Servings

Preparation time

45 minutes

Ingredients

2 Chicken Legs & Thighs

2 T Olive oil (not extra-virgin)

1⁄2 Onion (chopped)

4 oz Chorizo (sliced)

2 c arborio rice

5 c Chicken Stock (hot)

1 pn Saffron threads (crushed)

8 Steamers

4 Mussels

4 Shrimp

Instructions

Prepare the grill. You want a fire that you'll be comfortable with. If it's very hot, you will have to work fast.
Prepare all your ingredients and set them in cups and bowls in easy reach.
Grill the chicken.
While the chicken cooks, put the paella pan (or any wide pan) on the fire and add the oil.
When the oil is hot, cook the onion until it is translucent.
Add the chorizo and cook well.
Add the rice and stir it around, then add a cup of the hot stock and stir well.
As the stock is absorbed by the rice, add the saffron and more stock. Continue adding stock and stirring as the stock gets absorbed, risotto-style. About halfway through, add the clams.
When the rice is cooked al dente, add the mussels, and shrimp. They will cook in the last of the hot stock until it is all absorbed or evaporated. If you have a cover for the pan, you can use that to help the shellfish steam a bit, but don't forget to stir or the bottom will scorch.
The clams and mussels are cooked when they open. If the rice has drunk its fill, then let any remaining stock boil away.
Put the grilled chicken legs on top and serve hot.

Notes

The variations on this are endless. You can add summer squash and zucchini, and use a vegetable stock to make a veggie version. When we make it in late summer out at the beach we add corn and steamed lobster for great color and New England flavor. Try different types of sausages, or use chicken breasts instead of legs.