Edible Memoir

When I say Casi, Paella Valencia, well I guess you or your inner voice is saying it right now. That is, if you have an inner voice. Last year, a friend of mine let me into an uncommon factoid, that not everyone has an inner voice. Maybe you’re picturing a dark, curly haired figure crouching over her computer, composing this passage. Inner voice or not, when I say Casi, Paella Valencia, what I actually mean is that I made a Paella Valencia sans rabbit & snails, so I’d say mine is almost the same.

I’d like to say, that because it was such a bewitchingly, warm Spring afternoon, or that I was yearning to feel like a true Spaniard, sipping wine on the Iberian coast, I was inspired to produce this semi-intimating dish. Maybe I harnessed some solar magic, or maybe I wore some trendy red shoes to get the magic rolling. But alas, it was a yellowy, saffron-stained, bricked-road journey, four character’s different food preferences, and a little direction from NYT culinary wizards, that led me to this recipe. The non-practicing luddite that I am, while sun-bathing on a warm spring day in the Emerald City. In Emerald City terms, warm day, basically means high-60s. I called my best friend and invited her over for dinner. She had been hounding me to cook her favorite of my dishes, which to be fair she has not tried nearly enough of my dishes to judge accordingly. But alas it is a crowd favorite, my Lemon Seafood Pasta. Click the link, and if you don’t like it, you can just blame my friend and just know I’ve been hoodwinked into thinking it’s a goodie.

The evening’s festivities, soon turned into a dinner party for four, with one character’s aversion to seafood, another allergic to gluten, a few different capacities of handling spice, and my penchant to make things more complicated than necessary. Pasta of any kind was vetoed and another veto for anything fishy. Adios Lemon Seafood Pasta, we shall see you later this summer, probably for my friend’s birthday. Cue to my methodical problem-solving approach which is totally not frenzied. So hours before supper I remembered you can google anything, so I typed in all of the allergies and aversions.

Rice was my answer, gluten free and tremendously modifiable to any cuisine. I logically landed in the universe of NYT cooking and the semi-untraditional, Mixed Sausage Paella Recipe, that has inspired what follows. (I am not affiliate with any website, brand, or recipe aforementioned)

Do I need to instruct you to buy the edible elements for this dish, if so, then go right now.

In a large Paellera pan, and yes you guessed it, I don’t own a Paellera or a Paella, both of which are basically the traditional pan used to cook the paella. And apparently, Paella actually comes from the latin word for “pan”, let Martha Stewart elucidate you, as she did me, on your lack of a Paellera, here; (I am not in any way affiliated with the aforementioned website, brand, or products). Either way, I don’t own the characteristically shallow, wide, double-handled pan used most especially for browning the bottom of the rice in paella. So, I just pulled out my casi paellera. It’s stainless steel, wide, semi-shallow, and I use it for dishes it was probably not meant for.

Sauté your sausage, season your chicken with some salt & pepper, if you’re feeling crazy, sprinkle on some paprika & cayenne. Brown both sides of the chicken breasts. Remove all meats mentioned above into a bowl and once cooled, slice, chop, or dice (we don’t mince words around here) the chicken to plop atop the pan later. In that flavorful chicken grease you have amassed in the bottom of your pan, sauté almost a whole chopped onion and approximately five cloves of garlic, and sauté until they, or you, begin to sweat.

Meanwhile, in a separate sauce pan, dump in the entire box, bag?, can?, hey, I don’t know how your chicken stock was packaged. Sprinkle the recommended amount of saffron, more or less, again, this is your recipe, do with it what you will. But remember saffron is rarer than gold, literally. Bring to a boil, and simmer for about an hour. Trust me, let the mixture infuse as long as you can. Leave it be and we shall revisit this subject later, and when I say later, I mean like five paragraphs below.

I felt the original recipe lacked the food group that just makes the world go round, our rooty, flowery, bushy, fruity, nutty, tree friends, The Vegetable Family (review your T.V. Guide for local show times, kidding, but it sure does sound like a retro family comedy show). Sure crushed tomatoes is technically, originally a solid vegetable, but sometimes I need my plate to remind me that I’m actually eating a balanced meal with some in-my-face botanical superfoods. While hurriedly shopping at the grocery store, I improvised and splurged on some eggplant, later chopped the entire red bell pepper sitting in my vegetable basket at home, and…

I added some peas
for some green, none disagreed
and I was relieved.

Life Tip: When the haiku mood strikes you, give in.

Embarrassingly, I had misread the ingredient list from the get, I blame the sun and my wanting application of sunscreen earlier in the day. I read “tomato paste” instead of “tomato purée”, I bought some paste and belatedly learned that the recipe didn’t need that and I didn’t actually have a can of any other tomato product, purée or otherwise, squatting in my pantry. Since tomato paste is just a seriously concentrated version of tomato purée, furthermore tomato purée is a concentrated version of tomatoes. Therefore, one can substitute the tomato purée with some severely ordinary canned diced tomatoes. Because toma-toe to-ma-to. I pressured my friend to bring a can of diced tomato as her plus one, which solved one of my problems, I have 99 more but this dish ain’t one.

Remember before or after you chop your veggies (mistakes happen all the time, give yourself a break, give your vegetables a little rinsey-rinse under some water, don’t worry, they won’t melt.

The eggplant will add a bit more time to your overall total time, but who’s rushing, we are on Valencia time. Once the eggplant seems thoroughly cooked, add the rice, and sauté for a moment. Reintroduce the meats back into the pan.

Slowly and fully pour your saffron infused chicken stock into the rice, meat, and vegetable mixture that you have painstakingly browned in your not-so perfect Paellera pan, see I told you I’d get back to the this. Add your salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, and red pepper flakes; I even threw in some fresh parsley at this stage, because who doesn’t love extra greens in their dish, but I suppose beauty is in the eye of the tornado.

I hope that this has not been the first time you have tried your dish thus far, but if it is, then let me remind you, try it now, season if necessary, and then let it be for approximately 30 minutes. The rice needs to soak up the stock entirely, no one likes undercooked rice, and the bottom needs a crispy texture. Turn off the heat, cover with a lid, my pan doesn’t have a lid accompaniment, so I just used a baking sheet, flipped it upside down, and voila, it’s a DIY lid. Resourcefulness is next to godliness.

Unlike the recipe recommends, I did not strain the saffron from the chicken stock, honestly, saffron is too expensive to strain out, I want them (I suppose I mean those that I so lovingly cook for) to know that those are some quality saffron bits, swirling around their tongues, strong-arming their tastebuds to do a jig. No, but really, you don’t need to strain the saffron, when you pour your infused chicken stock into the pan, the saffron chicken stock sooner or later saturates the rice to create a true red rice masterpiece, it’s chef kissed approved.

Garnish your massive, one-pan accomplishment with some fresh flat-leaf parsley, gracias a mí jardín nuevo. I also thought olives would be an extra fancy-schmancy touch. I had some Castelvetrano olives in my fridge, I forgot they had pits still within, attempted to cut one in half, and well, obviously my knife didn’t smoothly dissect the olive, and I didn’t want to serve weird de-pitted, mangled, and (wo)man-handled olives, so I wisely deferred the task for a future dish fated to have said olives affixed.

Garnishes should always be edible. I would never serve you anything that you can’t stab with your fork, grasp with your fingers, maim with your teeth, and be swallowed, all the while knowing full well that there would be no unwelcome surprises later. Inedible garnishes can just get crushed by a house, mine, yours, or one from Kansas, and let their witchy-hypnosis power over chefs’ decisions to use them, shrivel up and shrink away. Inedible garnishes should never affix a plate.

Edible Elements

• Spanish Rice – I bought a bag with a specifically written title, “Paella Rice”, it even has a little recipe on the side of its miniature burlap bag body, maybe 1 1/2 cups, more or less, depending on your preference for rice to mixings ratio
• Chorizo Sausage – Incased or loose
• Chicken Breast
• Salt & Pepper
• Saffron – I put about 1 1/2 teaspoons into the stock, I just wanted the bits of thread to sing
• Chicken Stock – about 4 cups
• Tomato Paste – I’d say 2 tablespoons, but since I just used an actual spoon, feel your way through it
• Diced Tomato – canned or fresh, weigh those options, make your own decision
• Paprika – sprinkle based on desired color, don’t be afraid of a statement piece, we all love some color sometimes
• Eggplant
• Peas
• Red Bell Pepper
• Onion
• Garlic
• Olive Oil
• Fresh Flat Leaf Parsley – fresh from your garden,
• Optional: Cayenne, Red Pepper Flakes & Castelvetrano Olives (De-pitted, don’t put yourself between an olive-pit and a hard place)

In the end, Time rudely refused me a siesta, the meal surprised me with subtle flavors, and I only slightly burned the bottom of the pan. And now, oddly enough, I’ve utilized one too many metaphors and references alluding to a movie that used to haunt me nightly with terrifying nightmares, but it’s probably because one of my guests said my dog looked like Toto. To be fair there is an uncanny resemblance. There truly is no place like home… even peri-pandemic, or am I?

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Citation

Anderson, Jennifer. “What is a Paella Pan? (And Do I Really Need One?)”, Martha Stewart, March 29, 2019. May 17, 2021. https://www.marthastewart.com/1538063/paella-pan-guide

Fabricant, Florence. “Mixed Sausage Paella”, NYT Cooking. May 17, 2021. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012923-mixed-sausage-paella