Paella - Silly Rabbit

Mmmmmmm, paella...no doubt it's one of the first dishes people think about when thinking about Spanish food. A lot of people think about seafood when thinking about paella, but seafood isn't how it all started.

The first paellas were evidently made in Valencia, which is a port city, but they actually contained inland foods - think snails, chicken, rabbit - along with runner and butter beans. They were made by the rice farmers, and farmers have fields, and fields have all of the above, so Paella Valenciana was made with stuff from the land. But no matter what your paella contains, it's really all about the rice, isn't it? Because when done correctly, the paella has both perfectly separate, tender grains of rice along with crispy, caramelized rice that forms on the bottom of the paellero - the socarrat - or the holy grail of a perfect paella.

I've been on a paella kick; that is, I want to learn how to make a good one. But of course to make a good paella, one first needs to taste a good paella - and that's easier said than done. Last year, down in DC, I saw what may be the largest paella made in the U.S. - I can't vouch for Spain, but Significant Eater and I were at one of those dreaded street food fairs down in D.C. and we happened upon a crew from José Andrés' Jaleo restaurants working their magic...

We didn't stick around to taste it, as they had just started the batch, and have I mentioned I'm not a huge fan of waiting on lines at those dreaded street fairs?

Then last fall we went to Spain; Barcelona, to be exact. And while we had some amazing and excellent food in Barcelona, the one paella we had wasn't, in my opinion, a seminal one. Oh, it was good and we ate it at a particularly beautiful restaurant right on the beach, but it didn't knock our socks off, taste wise...

Here in NYC, one of the standards for paella is Socarrat Paella Bar. Now, considering there are only 4 or 5 places to actually dine on paella in NY, saying it's the standard bearer isn't really saying that much. But they've opened a second outpost on Mulberry Street in Nolita, and Sig Eater and I have dined there twice over the past couple of months. Guess what? From my limited knowledge about paella, all I can really say is that it tasted great which is basically what we're looking for when we dine out. Looked good, too...

So now, I'm about to make my own. I bought a new one of these (confession: I've tried before, once or twice, with a really small paella pan I have, and it has been ok)...

That's a 15" pan, about the smallest size you should be using to cook up a nice batch of paella. It'll feed 4 comfortably, provided you have some snacks before. I wanted to make a non-seafood paella, so I bought a rabbit, a couple of chicken legs and a mess of baby artichokes, which were on sale earlier this week. The chicken and rabbit were chopped into bite-sized pieces, the artichokes were prepped and cut into quarters, the chicken stock was simmering on top of the stove and the rest of my mise looked like this...

Traditionally, paella was cooked over an open fire...they didn't have ovens out in the fields. But in lieu of that open fire, a stove top or hot barbecue grill is acceptable. Or a setup like the Andrés crew above. Because you want to cook paella atop the heat source, not within an oven. Why? Because that's the way it's supposed to be done. Even though - many cookbook recipes have the paella finishing in the oven after starting out on the stove top; I suppose it's harder to fuck up that way. For me though, it's stove top only...I'm a traditionalist.

First, the chicken, rabbit and chokes got browned in some olive oil. Next, the tomatoes and garlic were turned into a dark paste in the center of the pan, and tossed with my by now browned goodies. I added the stock, brought it to a simmer for a few minutes, and added the rice, spreading it out so it was all covered with simmering stock. From this point on, stirring is not allowed, but making sure the rice is covered with stock by pressing is. Go figure. After about 10 minutes, it looked like so...

Then, the heat is turned down to a gentle simmer. A few minutes later, the paella looked like this...

The whole cooking time, by the way, was spent turning the pan round and around on 2 burners in order to have the rice cook evenly. The rice continued to cook for another 5 - 10 minutes (for a total cooking time of about 21 minutes), and when I thought some nice socarrat had formed, the heat was turned off, the pan was covered and allowed to rest for 10 minutes - a very important step, evidently. Here's the paella as it was brought to the table...

The verdict? While I still have a long way to go, this paella was pretty tasty. Not enough socarrat (is there ever?), and I will brine the rabbit next time if I use it...it just isn't the most exciting of meats and could use some help. And while I used a high-end purchased chicken stock, it's nowhere near as tasty as my own. It's a learning process, to be sure; after all, Valencian palleros have been making their paella for hundreds of years.