Paella — rice, chicken, pork, seafood, and sausages

It had been years since I had cooked or even eaten the Spanish rice dish called paella. I remember that we bought some at the market in Amboise ten years ago when friends from San Francisco were visiting. A vendor there prepares paella in gigantic pans on Sunday mornings (or used to), in quantities that can feed a hundred people.

It dawned on me Thursday morning that we had nearly everything we needed for a good paella: rice, chicken broth, chicken parts, spicy Spanish sausages, roasted red peppers, pork belly, shrimp, onions, garlic, herbs, and spices. Walt was going to the supermarket to buy some fish fillets, so I told him to pick up a few ripe tomatoes too. The ingredient list was complete.

And I had forgotten how easy it is to make paella. It's not necessarily a quick job, because you have to slice and dice a lot of the ingredients before you put the whole dish together. Tomatoes need to be peeled, seeded, and chopped. Red peppers need to be roasted, peeled, and sliced. (Of course, you can buy them already prepared, if you're lucky.) Shrimp need to be shelled and deveined. Or not...

The first step is to sauté the chicken parts (I used four drumsticks) and some big chunks of smoked pork belly (lardons fumés) in olive oil until they are browned and at least partially cooked. Then you add in a chopped onion and three or four chopped garlic cloves, all peeled.

When the onion and garlic are starting to cook, add in the tomato, the roasted red pepper, a bay leaf or two, and some sweet paprika, some cayenne or other hot pepper powder, a dozen or so fennel seeds, a good pinch of dried thyme, and some saffran or turmeric (curcuma) for color. Don't forget the salt and black pepper. Let it all cook for another five minutes.

Finally, add a pound (500 g) of rinsed raw rice to the pan and stir everything together carefully so that the rice gets coated with the flavorful oil in the bottom of the pan. Pour a liter of boiling chicken broth (or water) over all, and again gently stir everything together one last time so that all the rice is moistened. Put a lid on the pan or baking dish, and cook it at a low simmer, covered, for about 25 minutes, either on top of the stove or in a hot oven.

Taste some of the rice to make sure it's done. Add more liquid (water) and extend the cooking time for five minutes or as needed. Almost as a garnish, when you are about five minutes from taking the paella off the heat, push a dozen or so raw shrimp and some chunks of raw fish down into the rice and let them cook. You could also do the same with some whole mussels or small clams and give them just enough time to open up in the hot rice.

 A 2002 photo of the gigantic pan of paella cooking at the Sunday morning market in Amboise

Optionally, a couple of pre-cooked Spanish chorizo or chorizette sausages (our SuperU has them) are good with the paella. Serve the dish with lemon wedges. Here's a recipe similar to mine, for proportions and ingredients, but in French. It could serve six with six pieces of chicken and three sausages:

Paella valenciana

1 poulet (1,5 kg environ)

400 g de palourdes

12 grosses crevettes décortiquées

500 g de riz

250 g de lardons

2 petits poivrons rouges

3 grosses tomates

1 oignon

5 gousses d'ail

1 feuille de laurier

piment doux en poudre

2 doses de safran

1 l de bouillon de volaille

1 citron

8 c. à soupe d'huile d'olive

sel, poivre

Préchauffez le four à 240°C.

Lavez les poivrons, ouvrez-les et épépinez-les. Passez-les 10 à 15 min au four, jusqu'à ce que la peau soit brune et se boursoufle. Ôtez la peau et détaillez la chair en lanières. Réglez le four à 180°C.

Ebouillantez les tomates 1 minute, rafraîchissez-les et pelez-les. Ouvrez-les en deux, ôtez la base du pédoncule et les pépins. Détaillez les moitiés de tomates en morceaux de 2 cm. Pelez l'oignon et l'ail, hachez-les menu.

Découpez le poulet en morceaux et le lard en dés de 3 cm de côté. Faites revenir le tout dans une large poêle avec 6 c. à soupe d'huile d'olive. Ajoutez ensuite l'oignon et l'ail, faites sauter pendant 2 minutes. Assaisonnez.

Incorporez les tomates et les poivrons, faites revenir quelque temps, puis ajoutez les aromates et le riz. Versez le bouillon. Laissez cuire 25 minutes à feu doux sans remuer. Lavez les palourdes dans plusieurs eaux.

Faites revenir les palourdes dans le reste d'huile jusqu'à ce que les coquilles s'ouvrent. Ajoutez les palourdes et les crevettes au riz, laissez cuire 5 minutes à feu doux. Garnissez de quartiers de citron et servez chaud.