the ultimate seafood paella
By Laura and Angel Azcarraga
INGREDIENTS:250g Bomba Paella Rice
250g (1/2 lb) cuttlefish or monkfish or white fish like cod
400-500g (1 lb) shellfish; lobster, crab or shrimp
1 teaspoon paprika
2 cloves garlic, grated
2 tablespoons parsley roughly chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons salmoretta (see back for details)
2 liters fish stock (see back for details)
Lemon wedgesMake it.
INSTRUCTIONS:
-Heat up your fish stock in a small saucepan on the back burner so that it is warm and ready to go. Season your stock with salt to taste. The paella is not something you can taste while it is cooking, so you will want to season each of the components.
-Sprinkle your fish evenly with salt and the paprika, grated garlic and chopped parsley.
-Heat up your paella pan on low. You don’t want to get it too hot, to avoid burning your garlic or smoking your oil. —
-Pour 1/4 cup olive oil into the pan—with Spanish food you want to be generous with the olive oil.
-Put your fish pieces—both type #1 (cuttlefish or other chosen fish) and type #2 (lobster or other chosen fish) in the pan to cook them through, and get them lightly golden. Take out fish type #2 and set aside.
-Then add 3 tablespoons of the salmoretta to the pan.
-Then sprinkle in the rice Sauté for 2 minutes until the rice is hot and sizzling with everything else in the pan.
- Pour in the fish stock For the next 10 minutes, turn up the heat to the highest heat you’ve got. The purpose of this stage is to get the rice grain to open up. The liquid should look thicker as it has reduced a bit, and the rice you can see should look puffier.
-Now, for the next 10 minutes, you want to turn the heat all the way down too low. From this point on, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT STIRRING the rice! Place your second type of fish on top. Keep a very close eye on it at this stage, and if at the end of the 10 minutes there is still liquid in the pan, you can gently rotate the pan around to make sure it doesn’t burn. What you are looking for here is that the rice is dry and starting to make crackling sounds. It should transition from sounding like a simmer to sounding like it is frying, with no pools of liquid at the bottom.
-Serve immediately with lemon wedges.
NOTES: Paella tells you its done when you hear frying sounds instead of simmer sounds and there are no pools of liquid visible from the top. Rotate your pan around to get more heat to the center and to the parts that still have pools of liquid. Make sure you smell constantly to ensure nothing burnt is emanating.