Paella and Cesar

Los Angeles, California



It is that time again. While the weather isn't really all that warm here in So Cal; while Sandra tells me that it snowed over the weekend up at Lake Tahoe; we are, nevertheless, teetering on the precipice of summer. It is the Tuesday before Memorial Weekend, and that, my friends, is it. The heralding of Summer. Da da da da! With Memorial Day looming (a day when I celebrate fallen heroes of America by drinking ouzo and inhaling loucoumathes, my favorite of fried treats . . . but that's another post), and Fourth of July just around the corner, it is time to turn our attention to national dishes. And that brings me to paella, and Cesar.

Now, just for background, I should tell you that for the past three summers I have spent a week in South Lake Tahoe attending an immersion Spanish class. Yes, that's right, South Lake Tahoe. That beautiful, breathtaking place where young adults go to live so that they can ski all day and smoke pot all night. Or, so my northern Californian friends tell me, as one-by-one their offspring graduate from college and decide to take a year or two at high altitude. But I digress. Back at the Institute, where I study Spanish, one of the highlights of the week is to sit outside under the fragrant pines and watch one of the most popular teachers there, Cesar Garcia, prepare paella. Now, frankly, I would sit anywhere and watch Cesar prepare anything, even Jell-O, for hours on end. But that, too, is another post (requiring apologies to his very lovely wife, but then again, she knows we all feel this way).

Last summer when my friend, Bonnie, joined me at the Institute, we decided that after we returned home, we would get together to dish about Cesar and make paella. We're both pretty good cooks, so this shouldn't have been a problem. Time was the problem. So here we are, almost a year later, and we have plans to make paella this coming Friday to kick off Memorial Weekend and summer.

Truth be told, Paella was really popular when I was a kid. It went along with fondue and those avocado green and harvest gold appliances. So, I've been making it for a long time. I even acquired a paella pan way back before I had my first apartment. It used to be a specialty of mine, and I did make it a few times early on when I was wooing Billy. However, I haven't made it in a long, long time. So now, squeeking in, just before the heat of summer is upon us, Bonnie and I will make paella.

Here is my recipe, along with the method that I copied down while watching Cesar make it last summer. Le sigh . . .

Paella


olive oil
1 garlic clove, cut in half
6 chicken thighs
1 small onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 tomatoes, skinned & chopped
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
14 ounces. chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine
1/8 teaspoon saffron
1 cup white rice (La Bomba from Spain is perfecto)
1 Spanish chorizo, cut in small dice
6 large jumbo prawns
1 lb. medium shrimp
6-12 mussels
12 clams
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 8 ounce package frozen artichoke hearts
1/4 cup garbanzo beans


Place enough olive oil to lightly cover bottom of paella pan. Place half a garlic clove in oil; heat over medium-high heat. Once oil is hot, remove garlic and add chicken. Brown all over, turning often. Remove.


Mince other half of garlic clove and add to oil along with onion, pepper, and tomatoes. Cook over medium heat until it has softened and melded. Do not brown. Add paprika, saffron, chicken broth and wine. Bring to a boil. Add rice. Cook without stirring. "Disturb" the edges of the dish in order to let rice settle to the bottom.


Meanwhile, cook shrimp in clam broth until opaque. Remove from broth; add clams & mussels, cook until they have opened. Discard any that have not opened. In last ten minutes of cooking, arrange seafood, chorizo, peas, artichoke hearts and garbanzos over top of paella.


Continue cooking, twenty minutes or until liquid has been absorbed. Take off heat and cover with foil, then a dishcloth or tablecloth. Take to table. After ten to twelve minutes, remove cover. Salud.



The first year that I went to Cesar's paella demonstration I sat across from a woman who had made his paella for Christmas, the previous year. She told me that whenever they travel to other countries, they build their holiday celebration around a dish from that region. Which I thought was a fantastic idea. They had been to Spain that year. Before traveling to Spain, she had attended the Institute, and had gone to Cesar's paella class. So, at Christmas, she prepared her paella using Cesar's recipe. By the way, Cesar told us twice how to make the paella. Once in English, and then in Spanish. "Breakout" classes like this help to reinforce the language that we are learning in our grammar classes for several hours each day. They help attune your ear to the language, and enhance your comprehension, while giving you a break from the harder grammar classes. Pretty cool, isn't that?

While the recipe above is really mine, Cesar's recipe says to serve the paella with bread and vino. You should do what Cesar says. Yo tambien. Y gracias para leyendo mi blog.