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Paella


Together with sangria, gazpacho, tortilla de patatas, and a few more dishes, paella is the best-known Spanish food.
It is cooked all over the country, which means that each area has its paella. It is important if you come to Spain, to know that in addition to the local varieties you can find the following sorts of paella:

  • De marisco: seafood is the main ingredient.
  • Mixta: seafood and meat ( chicken, pig or rabbit, never beef).
  • De verduras: vegetables are the main ingredients.


There are also some dishes that are quite close to paella:

  • Arroz a banda: some ingredients have been removed after having given their flavour to the dish, and other ingredients have been mixed, so you'll only have rice on your plate.
  • Negro: the ink of squid is added to the water

  • Etc: the etcetera is bigger in the east of Spain ( Levante, Murcia, Cataluña (Catalunya), Balear Islands)

Ingredients (serves 8)

Paella Classic

  • About 600g of rice (the round variety, the long-grained rice doesn't absorb the flavour as much as the round one)
  • Twice the amount of water, ie: if you use 1 bowl of rice, then you add 2 bowls of water
  • 250g of shrimps
  • A medium-sized squid
  • 250g of small clams and/or 250g of mussels, both in the shell
  • 1 green and 1 red pepper
  • 1 onion
  • 1 fresh tomato, peeled and diced
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • Parsley
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Curcuma (saffron is very expensive)
  • A bit more than half a glass of olive oil
  • Ground black or white pepper
  • Salt (a spoonful at the beginning and you rectify according to your taste when the paella is boiling)
  • Lemon (some people squeeze the lemon when the paella is cooking, others put it in when the paella is served)

Method

You need a proper saucepan for that, a paellera, but a wide pan will do. The idea is that the paella boils at a large surface. In any case, a high, big saucepan can be good for that, but you will have to add a bit more water.

Peel the shrimps, chop the squid and the garlic.

Fill the water into a saucepan, put in the clams, mussels and the shell from the shrimps and bring to boil. Retrieve the mussels and clams and remove their shells. Put them on the plate with the peeled shrimps.

While the seafood boils, put the oil in a large pan, add the onion and the peppers. When the onion is almost transparent add the chopped squid and the garlic; add the tomato about 20 seconds later, leave it at low heat until the tomato is soft.

Add the rice to the fried vegetables (remember they are at low heat) and stir everything. Add the boiling water (use a filter) to the mix of fried veg and rice. Stir it. Now add the salt, curcuma, (just to give the colour, not much) the pepper and the bay leaf. The raw, peeled shrimps, the flesh of the clams and mussels and the parsley are added 5 minutes before taking it off the heat.

Very important:

The rice must boil for 20 minutes, but
the first 10 minutes it needs boiling at high heat, the rest at low heat.

Cover the saucepan if the rice is a bit hard and wait for about another five minutes.

Some people love paella a bit burnt, con quemadillo. So don't worry if you have it so, you are actually an expert paella cook!

Squeeze lemon on your plate and ¡que aproveche!

Drinks that go with Paella

Beer, sangria, tinto de verano (red wine with unflavoured or lemon-flavoured seltzer or even coke), dry cold Jerez, Fino, Manzanilla, or just plain water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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