Marlene Parrish - What Einstein Told His Cook 2

Do all the advance cooking in a large, preferably black cast-iron skillet rather than in the paella pan. The skillet’s idiosyncrasies will be familiar to you and therefore the pan more reliable. Also, the skillet fits better than an unwieldy paella pan on a stove-top burner. About a half hour before your guests arrive, turn on the oven, assemble the dish in the paella pan, and allow it to bake until the rice is cooked.

This recipe is designed for a 14-to 16-inch paella pan. Bob and I bought ours in Valencia, the home of seafood paella. Why that size? Because it was the biggest we could fit into our suitcase.

24 small clams

12 mussels

1¼ pounds medium shrimp

5 to 6 cups chicken broth

A good pinch of saffron threads

½ pound chorizo sausage

6 to 8 chicken drumsticks, skin on

Salt and freshly ground pepper

About 1/3 cup olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 sweet red pepper, finely chopped

1 sweet yellow pepper, finely chopped

6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

½ teaspoon paprika, preferably smoked sweet

Spanish paprika ( pimentón )

1 cup ripe cherry tomatoes, pierced with a knife

1 cup frozen peas, defrosted

2½ cups Spanish short-grain rice, preferrably the bomba variety

Lemon wedges for garnish

Smoky Garlic Mayonnaise (chapter 9) for serving

ADVANCE PREPARATION:

1.Discard any clams that do not close when tapped. Scrub the remainder under running water. Discard any mussels that do not close when tapped. Scrub the remainder under running water. Place them together in a bowl and refrigerate. Peel the shrimp, reserving the shells, then devein (remove the black vein down the back). Place in another bowl and refrigerate.

2.To enhance the flavor of the broth, place the reserved shrimp shells in a sauté pan with a little olive oil. Cook over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, or until they turn red. Add 1½ cups of the chicken broth to the pan and let it simmer quietly for about 5 minutes. Strain the broth into a glass measure. Discard the shells.

3.Crush enough of the saffron between 2 spoons or with your fingers to yield ½ teaspoon crushed. Add it, along with a few whole saffron threads, to the hot broth to steep. Add enough additional chicken broth to make 5 cups. Place 1 cup additional plain broth off to the side. You may or may not need some of it.

4.Cut the chorizo into 4-inch lengths and simmer in water for 15 minutes. Let cool and slice into ¼-inch-thick slices. Set aside.

5.Rinse the chicken pieces and pat dry. Sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Place a heavy cast-iron skillet or paella pan over high heat and add the olive oil. It should just film the bottom of the pan. When hot, add the chicken and brown for about 15 minutes on all sides. The chicken should be barely over half cooked. Transfer the chicken to a plate, leaving the oil behind in the pan, and set aside.

6.Add the onion and sweet peppers to the oil remaining in the pan and sauté over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are softened but not browned. Add the garlic and paprika and cook for another 2 minutes, but do not let the garlic brown. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes longer. Set the vegetables (this is called the sofrito ) aside to cool.

FINISH THE DISH:

1.About 35 minutes before serving, place a rack in the lowest position in the oven. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2.Place the sofritoin a 16-inch paella pan, spreading it out. Distribute the rice over the vegetables and stir to coat with the oil in the pan.

3.Bring the 5 cups broth to a boil in a saucepan. Place the paella pan on the stovetop over medium-high heat. Pour the boiling broth over the rice and vegetables. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer, without stirring, for 10 minutes.

4.Turn off the heat. Add the sausage slices, pushing them into the rice. Add the shrimp. Add the clams and mussels, hinge side down.

5.If there is room, add the chicken pieces. If not, place the drumsticks in a shallow baking dish and bake them on the top oven shelf while the paella is on the bottom shelf.

6.Carefully place the paella in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Check the dish. If the rice seems too dry, add some of the reserved broth. Do not stir the rice. When done, the mollusks will be open, the shrimp will be pink, and the rice should have a bit of a bite. If necessary, bake for 3 minutes longer.

7.Remove the paella from the oven. Scatter the defrosted peas over the surface. Cover the paella with a tea towel or foil and allow it to rest for 5 minutes. As it stands, the remaining liquid will be absorbed and the rice will become tender. This is a very important step.

8.Garnish with lemon wedges. Place the paella in its pan in the center of the table and allow guests to help themselves. Pass the chicken legs, if you didn’t fit them in the paella pan, and pass the garlic mayonnaise.

MAKES 6 TO 8 SERVINGS

ALL THOSE WHO LOVE SCALLOPS, SAY “EYE!”

A seafood place told me that according to an FDA regulation all sea scallops are treated with a chemical dip to prolong shelf life. I’m surprised that the FDA would mandate a process that has no impact on safety but only keeps the scallops fresher longer. What’s the scoop? Is there such a regulation? And maybe you could enlighten me about “diver,” “dry,” and “processed” scallops while you’re at it.

First of all, don’t go back to the “seafood place” that told you the FDA requires them to soak their scallops. That’s baloney. But before I tell you why, let’s see what all those scallopian adjectives mean.

A scallop is a lump of white seafood shaped like a marshmallow, right? Wrong. We might as well say that a cow is a steak. “Scallop” is the name of a remarkable critter that we almost never see whole. Fishermen shuck most of them at sea as soon as they’re dredged from the bottom, throwing away all but that big, pale muscle that ends up in our markets. That’s the scallop’s adductor muscle, which it uses to close its hinged pair of shells that are shaped like Shell Oil signs. Other bivalve (two-shell) mollusks, including clams, oysters, cockles, and most mussels, have pairs of adductor muscles, but scallops have only that single, huge Schwarzeneggish one.

Americans generally disdain the rest of the animal, but it is all edible (except for the shells, of course). Try it raw on the half shell if you ever get the chance. A whole, raw scallop is sweeter than a clam and without the oyster’s sulfurous tang. But be sure it’s absolutely fresh—no more than a day or so out of clean, certified waters. Scallops spoil quickly—even faster than most other kinds of shellfish—because their shells don’t fit together tightly. Most other bivalves can be shipped around the country tightly “clammed up,” still alive and fresh. But scallops die soon after being taken out of the water, and, gaping as they do, they’re an open invitation to spoilage bacteria.

The two major species of scallops sold in the United States are loosely referred to as sea scallops and bay scallops . American sea scallops (mostly Placopecten magellanicus ) are the bigger ones, averaging about 20 to 30 meats per pound. They’re about an inch or more high and taken from shells that may be 8 to 12 inches across. Bay scallops ( Argopecten irradians ) are smaller in both muscle (less than an inch high) and shell (2 to 3 inches); they average about 60 to 90 per pound and are found closer to shore. The really tiny scallops you occasionally see in the market, at more than about 70 per pound, are calico scallops ( Argopecten gibbus ). Many fishmongers ignore the niceties of biology and geography, applying the names sea or bay based on size—or whim—alone.