If It's Not Paella...

What do you get when you take rice, add some tasty ingredients to it, cook it on top of the stove until all the rice is tender and a crust forms on the bottom?

If you said paella, for sure you’d be right.  But you’d also be right if you mentioned the classic rice dishes from a few other places around the globe.

Take China, for instance.  While it might not have a specific name, you can get the popular rice dish at many restaurants in NYC’s Chinatown, and if a restaurant (most likely Hong Kong style) is offering it, it’s simply called rice in casserole on the menu. After trying a couple of versions around town, including an excellent one at a restaurant called A-Wah (recommended by a neighbor), I decided to make my own. 

To start, you'll need one of these...

It’s called a sandy pot, or clay pot, and it’s made out of - you guessed it - sand and clay. Usually just glazed inside and on the lid. Before using a sandy pot for the first time, you should soak it overnight; according to a few other sources, it’s also a good idea to cook a little rice in it to seal up any microscopic cracks and crevices.  I did both.

Wanting to make a version with chicken and mushrooms, which seems to be a favorite at the Chinese restaurants that offer the dish, I cut up a few chicken thighs, as well as 2 or 3 types of mushrooms which happened to be in the fridge. To punch up the flavor a bit, start by browning the thighs and mushrooms in a hot pan…

Then deglaze that pan before adding the thighs, mushrooms and deglazing liquid to the rice (medium-grain) in the sandy pot. For even more flavor, use a nice home made chicken stock, but water will work, and the standard ratio of rice to water (1 cup rice to 1 3/4 cups liquid) is fine too.  It all looked like this, before being brought to a boil and then covered and cooked at a moderate simmer for around 20 minutes…

I think it helps to turn the heat up to medium for the last few minutes in order to get the rice nice and crispy on the bottom. I did okay on my first attempt…here’s what the dish looks like when it’s done, before garnishing with some chopped scallions and cilantro leaves...

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.

Where You Been, Making Risotto?

Wow...it has been over a week since my last post. What am I lazy or something? No, not really, as I've been blogging for the last week over at eGullet and we (my friends and I) did one heckuva job. I mean really blogging; taking pictures and writing about every damn thing that crossed my lips...and then some. It's hard to do. A lot of work. I'm sure glad I don't do that here.

However, some of it was so good that I figured I 'd share with you. And I'm starting with rice. Well...risotto to be more precise. In the past, I used only arborio rice to make risotto; now it depends on what type of risotto I'm cooking. However, if you only want to keep 1 type of risotto rice on hand, my go-to is carnaroli rice...it works well for all styles of risotto and doesn't overcook as easily as the others.

Since we were engaged in a little competition, we all had the same ingredients to make a meal with. I had a good pound of baby artichokes (which aren't really babies, but that's another story altogether), a bunch of spring onions and a quart of homemade chicken stock in the freezer. Sure, you can use canned or boxed (Swanson's Low Sodium; Pacific) chicken stock, but will it ever be as good as homemade? No. You can even make you're own vegetable stock if you're a...gasp...vegetarian; that's easy and only takes an hour. If you're a vegan, well - work on that yourself. Pantry wise, I always have Parmesan cheese, and really - you don't need much else. Salt & pepper - of course.

I wanted something a little special for the garnish (it was a competition, after all), so after cleaning the artichokes, I frizzled them. Okay, deep fried...

Then I proceeded to make the risotto. First, sweat (which means to lightly fry without getting the vegetables all brown) the onions and artichokes in butter and olive oil till they're soft, then add the rice till it's translucent...

Then add 1/2 cup wine, and continue making the risotto...you know, waiting until each addition of stock is absorbed before you add more and stirring a lot...

The final step in making a risotto is generally adding the cheese and sometimes more butter. I try to be a little judicious, only because. So, when the risotto is almost done to your liking - you're tasting it, aren't you? - turn off the heat. Then add the cheese. If it gets too tight, a little more stock can't hurt; it will get absorbed, and it's why I start with at least 4 times the amount of stock vs. rice.

I like to serve the risotto in bowls, garnished with a little finely minced parsley and those frizzled baby artichoke hearts. It's so good...

Oh - make enough for leftovers, which make awesome risotto pancakes.

Baby Artichoke and Spring Onion Risotto - serves 2 with leftovers

1 C Carnaroli rice

4 C stock (chicken preferred, vegetable okay)

1/2 C dry white wine

1 T butter and olive oil ( or 2 T of one or the other, I don't care)
1 lb. baby artichokes, cleaned and sliced

1 bu. spring onions (or 1 medium onion, diced)

1 C grated Parmersan

2 T Italian parsley

Make risotto. Some directions are above.