End of Summer Celebration Paella

To be very honest, I miss living in Spain. My mother tells me that I have romanticized my poor literature grad student life in Spain; that if I had to live there as an adult, it would be just as mundane as living anywhere else in the world – work, pay bills, sleep, and repeat. As a student, I had the privilege to be carefree, live a bohemian lifestyle, debate literary theory at bars after dinner with Spaniards, write stream of consciousness poetry while getting hit on by Dutch guys on business in Barcelona.

What I actually miss most is the food. Everything I ate, I deconstructed so that I could figure out how to make it later. Luckily, my favorite dishes weren’t very complex. There weren’t many recipe websites back then and even fewer recipes from Spain. I would copy recipes out of my landlady’s ¡Hola! magazine every chance I got.

One habit I developed whenever I missed Spain was having paella in September to bid farewell to Summer and welcome Autumn. I would spend the summer slowly collecting the ingredients, the Calasparra short grain rice, the homemade chicken stock, Spanish chorizo (not to be confused with Mexican chorizo), the hot smoked paprika (ESSENTIAL!), and the saffron. Then, that first cool breeze hits my skin, and I go pick up chicken and seafood to put together my “End of Summer Celebration” paella. Over the years, I have taken some shortcuts because a tiny apartment kitchen can only do so much justice for a good paella.

2009

This paella was to celebrate a friend’s visit, not about saying goodbye to summer.

2012

The year I deconstructed paella, stuffed saffron-scented glutinous rice balls with mussels and clams, and won a [Food on a Stick] food challenge.

2016

First paella in a new apartment, so we splurged on lovely, locally wild caught, sustainably-sourced seafood

2017

A rainy Labor Day Weekend with West Indian American festivities will underway

End of Summer Celebration Paella

Makes enough for 10 healthy appetites

5 c Calasparra short grain rice, well-rinsed

8 c chicken stock, hot when possible

1 large Spanish onion, finely diced

1 red bell pepper, finely diced

2 T garlic, minced

1 large chicken breast, boneless, skinless, cut into 1-inch pieces

8 links mini Spanish chorizo, sliced diagonally

Mixed seafood of your choice (I prefer scallops, mussels, clams, squid, and whole shrimp for garnish)

2 c flat Italian green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 c artichoke hearts, quartered

A few stalks of white asparagus for garnish

2 T hot smoked paprika

1 t saffron threads, very loosely packed

Sea salt + white pepper to taste

Olive oil

Heat up a deep frying pan over medium high heat. Add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Add the onions and saute until fragrant.. Add the diced bell peppers and cook until soft. Then, add the garlic. Continue to move everything around the pan as you add the chorizo, then the chicken. Saute until all of the pink is gone from the chicken. Add a tablespoon of the paprika. Gently toss in the cleaned, mixed seafood. Scallops can be seared separately and added later. Once the seafood starts to firm up and just become opaque, add about 4 cups of chicken stock. Crush the saffron threads with your fingers into the stock. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat up and bring to a boil. Turn off heat, then separate the meats from the stock.

In the paella pan, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan and heat to medium high. Add in the rinsed rice and toast the rice in the pan for a few minutes. Add in the stock from the meats and bring to a boil. Bring the heat to low and stir well until the rice has absorbed some of the liquid. Sometimes, I cheat and cover the paella pan to help the rice absorb the liquid.

Add the vegetables at this point of the process. Keep stirring. If the rice is still looking a little dry, start adding the rest of the stock a little at a time. Cook for about 15 – 20 minutes. Add the meats to the rice and vegetables and give it all a good stir until all of the liquid is absorbed. The rice should be creamy, but a nice crust should form on the bottom of the pan called the socarrat.

Garnish as you see fit. I like to arrange whole mussels and whole shrimp around the perimeter of the pan with sliced red bell pepper and white asparagus radiating from the center in between shellfish.

¡Buen provecho!

Out with the Old . . .

At the end of every year, people indulge so that they can start the new year fresh with promises of eating healthy and exercising more.  I am more of the moderation mindset when it comes to food, so instead of pounds upon pounds of cookies, layer after layer of cakes, and dozens upon dozens of chocolates, I decided to make crackers and dips as gifts.  First, pecorino olive oil whole wheat crackers.

A quick toast and spin and toast in a 450 degree oven, I had nearly a bucketful of thin, crispy, crunchy crackers full of olive oil and whole wheat goodness. Using a fine, Italian extra virgin olive oil and a lovely Italian pecorino, the crackers turned out hearty with just a touch of cheesy goodness. I boxed them up and paired them with some homemade bruschetta and cheese balls (the cream cheese kind, not the crunchy Utz kind).  I spent a lot of the holiday season digging up old recipes I picked up in elementary and middle school.  Who knew that summer recreation program recipe from 2nd grade or that random Spanish Academy recipe would come in so handy all of these years later.

For those with a sweet tooth, I went for a homemade graham cracker.  A recipe that calls for two tablespoons of vanilla extract catches my attention.  The apartment smelled amazing for a couple of days after the first batch.  Thank you, Smitten Kitchen, for such an amazing recipe.

Graham crackers are always delicious with cream cheese, so why not make a lovely cream cheese dip to pair with them.  When I lived in the South, pumpkin cheesecake dip was always served with graham crackers during the holidays.  Instead of brown sugar, I used 1/3 cup of agave syrup and used neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese.  Tangy, spicy, and sweet, the dip really satisfies the sweet tooth without putting on those pesky holiday pounds.

Stay tuned to see what other recipes I pull out from my childhood.