Day Nineteen - Spain

Hola! Welcome to the place where the rain falls mainly on the plain.  I'm talking, of course, about Spain.  Today's stop was actually for a late lunch, and benefited greatly from the fact that because of the storm, the university was closed and I got to spend a day at home.  And there was no better way to spend it than to cook up a (labor intensive) meal.

I could have gone a lot of different directions with today's tour stop.  But ever since I heard Manuel offer to make it for Mr. Fawlty on Fawlty Towers, I've been excited to try my hand at making paella. So today, that's just what I did. There are many different variations for this, just as there are many different regional identities in Spain. I found one that was a bit of a shortcut, creating almost a casserole type feel out of it.  Still, even though it was a shortcut, it still took a lot to get this one together.


Paella

5 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup orzo
1 1/2 cups wild rice
Large pinch of saffron threads
1 cup all purpose flour
3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
6 chicken thighs
5 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces chorizo sausage
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup dry sherry, plus splash
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
2 tablespoons thyme
1 orange and 1 yellow bell pepper, roasted and chopped
1 pound fish filet (we used catfish)
1 pound shrimp
1 tablespoon Old Bay
1 lemon
1/2 cup parsley

This was probably the most work I have done cooking one dish for this blog so far.  There were a lot of moving pieces to it, and a lot of things that went in to it.

First, I roasted the bell peppers in the oven on a low broil.  I waited until the skill was blackened, then I pulled them out to cool.  Once they had cooled, I peeled the peppers and removed the seeds.  Then I chopped them up and let them rest.

 

Next, I heated two of the tablespoons of butter and fried the orzo until it was golden brown.

I then added the wild rice, saffron, and the chicken broth to the mix and stirred. I brought it to a boil for about 20 minutes.

While the rice/orzo mixture boiled, I mixed together some of the flour and paprika, and dredged the chicken thighs through it to cover them.

I heated three of the tablespoons of olive oil, and then fried the chicken until they were golden brown on both sides, about 12 minutes total. Once they were browned, I removed them from the skillet and put them on a plate to rest.

In the same skillet, I added another tablespoon of olive oil, and then added the chopped chorizo.  I cooked for about two minutes, letting them render, and then added the chopped onion and garlic, cooking for about five minutes until they were soft.

Once this was cooked, I splashed with some sherry to deglaze the pan.  I added the thawed peas to the pan, along with the thyme and roasted peppers, and removed from heat.

I sliced the fried chicken into little pieces, and then added them to the rice/orzo mix.  I also added the contents of the chorizo pan to the rice/orzo mix, and stirred everything well.

I transferred the contents of the pot into a large casserole dish that I had prepped with two tablespoons of butter.  I set the oven to 400 and baked the dish for about 30 minutes.

While I did this, I took the catfish filet and covered it with kosher salt.  I let that sit for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes, I rinsed the filet and patted it dry.  I added some Old Bay to the flour/paprika mix from the chicken, and dredged the fish in it.  I heated 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the same skillet I'd used for the chorizo, and fried the fish until it was golden brown.

I removed the fish and let it rest.  I then added the shrimp back to the pan.  I added the lemon juice, the rest of the sherry, the parsley, and the remaining butter to the pan, and cooked for about 4 minutes.

I removed the casserole dish from the oven, and served a large scoop onto a plate.  I then flaked the fish and topped the mixture with a few pieces of fish.  I then topped everything with a few shrimp.

The result...

...was really something else.  My wife loves the idea of a "perfect bite."  She'll spend most of her time at dinner trying to get a little of this and a little of that and a bit of this thing over here on to her fork. With the paella, it was nearly impossible to do that, because there were so many elements to the dish that you couldn't get everything on one bite.  But, because there were so many elements, it was almost impossible NOT to find a perfect bite.

You'd get some of the chicken and shrimp along with the rice in one bite.  The next, you'd taste the chorizo and the roasted peppers.  The next would have the sherry front and center.  The fish would be the star of the next bite, and so on and so on.

This was really a great meal, though one that I would probably not make on a regular basis.  It took a lot of time, and it was probably one of the more expensive we'll have this month (four different proteins in one dish will do that).  But it was perfect for today, where I had a lot of time and we were a snowed in.  This dish definitely helped take us away from the snow and brought us to Spain, if just for a little while.  And for that, I'd call it a great success.