Our First Paella

Griffin · March 18

After working hard in the yard all afternoon yesterday, we were sitting on the porch having a few beverages, enjoying the nice weather and trying to figure out something to do about dinner. SWMBO'ed really wanted steak, I think, but after all the hard work I wanted something lighter. We finally decided on trying to do paella for the first time.

Last year, my parents brought us back a paella pan and some saffron from Spain. We've been meaning to try them out, but we kept getting busy or would forget about it. The pan I have doesn't appear to be the same size as the one most people are using. It's 9" across on the bottom and 11" on the top. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most others have bigger ones. Since it didn't seem the same size, we kinda took a few recipes and tried to adjust them to fit our needs. While we didn't nail the soccrat or the rice, but the paella had a nice flavor and we got the seafood done perfectly. Not blog worthy, but we'll keep working on it till we get it right.

Anyway, got the Egg rolling at 400 with the AR in it to give it some height. Mise en place (except seafood) consisted of Spanish chorizo, onions, tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, bomba rice, salt, paprika, olive oil and a glass of red to fortify my nerves.

Started out by browning off some Spanish chorizo. Picture to show our setup and the pan we used.

I'll skip all the other steps and jump to almost done. Seafood had been added which was shrimp, mussels, scallops and some tentacles

Done. We let it rest for 5 minutes while I grilled up some bread to go with it.

Plated up

We actually sat down at the table for this meal and used small plates with the pan between us which worked out perfect. Once we figured out the rice wasn't perfect, we just foraged through the paella pan getting all the seafood and chorizo. Wasn't going to let all that go to waste.

While it wasn't perfect, I think we learned a few things.

1. Don't overcrowd the paella pan. I think we added to much stuff.

2. Wait longer after putting in the rice to add seafood. I could have kept cooking it to get the rice perfect, but then the seafood would have been overcooked. When it came down to it, I'd rather have the seafood cooked perfectly and the rice undercooked, than perfect rice and overcooked seafood.

3. I need to do more research into cooking paella. I don't think I know enough about it.

4. Paella is a fun cook. We'll be trying this again till we get it right. We've also thought of a few versions that we want to try out.

Anyway, thanks for taking a look.

jlsm · March 18

Did you see the naked whiz's writeup?

Solson005 · March 18

It looks really good, I really enjoy paella and need to make one again. I think my pan is just slightly bigger than yours but there have been some posts lately talking about giant pans. The first time I did one using my dutch oven table and a fire underneath only one clam opened and it took awhile for the mussels so when I did it on my BGE last fall I boiled the clams inside and just added after the rice was really close to being done.

What kind of rice did you end up going with? One of the reasons I have yet to try Bomba is it will end up being one of the most expensive components since I will have to order it online. Arroz Sollana works pretty good and I can find it for $3.99.

Thanks for posting

Griffin · March 18

@jlsm - yeah, I looked that over and took some of the ingredients and steps from there.

@Solson005 - we used bomba rice. White and blue bag, brand name Matiz. That stuff ain't cheap. It was $10.99 for 1kg or 2.2lbs. We only used a cup of it though, so we have plenty left.

SkinnyV · March 18

Awesome cook, its on my bucket list. Seems like lots of prep needed to hunt down certain ingredients but well worth it.

R2Egg2Q · March 18

It looks good Jason! Bummer about the rice. I can't imagine cooking paella while trying to relax after a hard day of work as I find the paella cook to be a lot of work (but rewarding) :) I ask my wife to give me a day's notice on paella so I can be sure to gather all of the ingredients and get organized.
Those are some long handles on your pan. What's the width across from handle to handle?

Griffin · March 18

@SkinnyV - the only hard thing to track down would be the bomba rice. You can really use any seafood you want. Or chicken. Or rabbit. We had wanted to use clams, but the store was out.

@R2Egg2Q - I didn't think it was a lot of work. A lot of steps, for sure, but not hard. Similar to a stiry fry minus the high heat and constant stirring. I'll check the lengths on the handles when I get home.

Mickey · March 18

I am so coming to your house.

Griffin · March 18

You are welcome any time @Mickey.

Austin Egghead · March 18

Dayum that looks good. Wished yall could have stayed for saturday. Yall were missed.

chris123stock · March 18

Looks good, I wondered what I could do with my squid, this may work.

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Our First Paella

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