since I was a little boy. Today I'm going to be cooking the
world-famous the Spanish national Paella Valenciana. If there is a dish in Spain that brings family together it will be paella.
I'm putting my reputation on the line, because Balenthenos are very particular with this recipe, like
Napolatanos are with their pizza. So I have a quite a lot of
ingredients here Artichoke, green beans, broad beans, as you can see. Chicken and rabbit the two main meats. The real heroes of this dish.
This stuff is just fundamental to the
recipe. Essentially. So lets start, okay. I'm just heating up this beautiful paella pan.
I'm going to
start preparing the saffron. Okay, in Spanish saffron is the most
expensive thing in the world. The clove is very small and its difficult and hard to find outside
of spring. What makes it different, is that it is toasted.
As supposed to sun dried. We're going to use this from another country and toast it ourselves.
Okay, so I'm just going to fold it. Kind of an envelope. Then I'm going to put it into this hot pan just for a few
seconds, and that will give extra fragrance, and it will be easier to release all that beautiful aromas and the smokiness into the stock.
I've had it for about 10
seconds on each side, that is enough. I have the chicken
and the rabbit. And first thing a generous amount of salt. There's a lot
of ingredients going into that pan.
Good olive oil extra virgin always. You see how it's cracking, the salt The pan is really hot and we're going to go with the meat. Have a couple of chicken thighs, with the bone and the skin, cut in half, and sort of like a quarter of rabbit approximately. But again, you cannot get rabbit, or you don't like it, just put some more chicken in or pork rib, that will do.
We need to cook this meat until it's really dark. This high heat has given the meat a really nice brown caramelized colour and flavour. I'm just going to make a little space for the veggies. I have some runner beans already prepared, and some broad beans.
And I want this to get really brown again.
At this point I need to add the artichoke. Very fundamental ingredient in the paella. Take the outer leaves from the bottom of the flower. Gonna cut the stalk.
Peel the stalk. You can either do it with a paring knife. With the pealer cut the
artichoke around here. Peel it with a paring knife
on the outer part a leave sort of like a diamond shape, like a mushroom.
Cut it in half. Cut in quarter and this inner hair, which is inside, which is not edible we just need to
remove it. Just going to do the same with all this quarter's. I'm going to add a couple of artichokes in total so that it all browns nicely.
This
is not a recipe that needs a lot of stirring. Actually. Otherwise juices will be released and it will start poaching and boiling, and this isn't what we're looking for. Gonna go with the next ingredient.
Garlic.
Very important in the Spanish cuisine. Just gonna finely chop it. A couple of
garlic pills for this recipe will be sufficient. I've put the heat down.
Give it a little stir, and I'm not gonna leave it there for too
long. Maybe just about a minute. Or thirty seconds even depending on
the heat. Smoked paprika as the world knows it.
That's what gives fantastic favour to a lot
of Spanish recipes. Give it a little stir, and I'm going to add straight away the grated tomatoes. I have two grated
tomatoes over here and I think I'm only going to use half. Put the heat, right back up.
And now
it's time for a stirring. As well, this tomato will cook in about two minutes, no more. Take a look at this. Really nicely browned loads of colour.
Loads of depth. You know even the
veggies they are no longer green. This is not an al dente good-looking type
of thing. All those reds, all those browns means
flavour.
I have a stock here. I'm just gonna pour
this chicken stock one-and-a-half liters. Give it a little stir. Lets go back to the saffron.
Going to use about half a gram. Crush it a bit so that it spreads out a little bit more. Let's bring this to
the boil. And add the rice.
And now with the rice. Okay I'm going to be using about 250 grams which is half of this packet. But if you don't find a Spanish rice, or something that's called paella rice just use short-grain rice, okay. Never
use basmati or jasmine, or long-grain in general.
It is one of the rices which absorbs the most water. Take a quick look. Look at the colour. I'm just going to add around 250 grams of this rice.
Give it a little
stir. Make sure either spreads quite nicely.
Just leave it for a couple a minute so that they rice flattens and evens, and then
we'll just let it be. Okay, this is getting back up to the boil. Last stir.
I will let it cook on
the highest heat for 10 minutes. Then will lower it down
for another six minutes, approximately until it's ready.
You can see here that this part, the water is below the rice, and that one is just over there. It's
very important that you don't stir your paella at any point, after the begin, because otherwise the rice will release the
starch, and it will become stodgy. We are going to add the rosemary, three sprigs.
We're going to create a little bit of a lead. I'm going to lower down the heat, because this rice
will still need about five minutes on the low heat, and another five minutes resting, and I
think that will be the perfect rice, with a perfect socarrat underneath. Which is the crispy bit that forms
through all that oils and fats that goes down and a bit of the starch of the rice how it crispens up
at the bottom. That's the most tasty part.
It's been resting for about 4-5 minutes, so now is the time to unveil it. Mm it smells beautiful. The rice looks
like it's perfectly cooked. You can see a bit of the burnt bits on
the side.
That's exactly what I was looking for. I
have to say and the socarrat on the bottom. Normally, just take the rosemary off put
it into one side, and you serve a mix of the top, the
bottom, the side, the centre. Just so that everyone gets a bit of this part.
Nice piece of meat, a little bit of the
rice. Mixed with a socarrat, always scraping the bottom. In many families they like it with a wedge of lemon. They would put it on
the side and just squish it yourself.
Okay. So we never squish it all over. Mmm It's amazing how tasty this rice dish
can be. Every aroma every fragrance and spices, vegetables, I mean it's all in, and there you go.
Paella. Spanish national dish. If you
want me to make any other Spanish recipe
please say it on the comment box below and I'll do my best. You're looking for a
great drink to go with this paella going to Drinks Tube, and there is a
fantastic daiquiri.
This recipe and loads more classic Spanish dishes are in my book. Tapas Revolution..
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