Grill-top Paella

by Jim Price
Falmouth MA, jprice@whoi.edu
Version 1.3: February, 2006.

Making a paella is a great way of entertaining friends who enjoy food and cooking. There is no denying that making a paella is a big production, but that's half the fun of it. There are lots of ways for guests to help and in the end a beautiful and flavorful meal that everyone seems to enjoy.  The main thing I have to offer is encouragement --- making a paella is not as difficult or as risky as it might appear. In particular, the notion of cooking rice in an open pan over a fire seems doomed to failure unless you learned while growing up in the hills above Valencia. However, I have done it many times, knowing nothing more than I'll pass along right here, and have never had a serious failure.

The traditional cooking method is over an open, wood fire.  Now that is tricky, but if you have the space and can count on decent, weather give it a try. Otherwise, I suggest that you cook your paella on a gas grill.  The temperature is much easier to control and by adding some hardwood to the coals (cherry, hickory, etc.) you can build the smoky flavor of a wood fire.

The ingredients of a paella can be varied in many ways --- seafood or not, chicken or not, almost any vegetable would be fine --- but there are three key points that will help you toward a good result.

Paella comes from the Latin 'patella' which means pan. key point 1) is that you have to use a pan that is large enough that the paella will be no more than about 3 inches thick. The amounts listed below make eight generous servings and require a pan that is about 13 inches in diameter by about 3-4 inches in depth. I don't think that the thickness of the pan itself or the kind surface, i.e., whether ceramic or steel or teflon, matters very much and so almost any skillet that was of sufficient size would probably be fine. A lid is not essential, but some kind of handle is important.  Check that your pan will fit on your grill.

Ingredients for eight servings

• 8 small pieces of chicken; medium thighs or drum sticks are fine; large breasts may be halved.  
• 16 large shrimp, cleaned and and with the vein removed, leave the tails on; lobster is a great substitution.
• 16 small clams, e.g., cherrystones
• 1 medium red and 1 green sweet pepper
• 1 medium sweet onion
• 2 medium ripe tomatoes
• 12-16 oz of spicy sausage, e.g., chorizo
• 5 3/4 cups of flavorful chicken broth or stock (more on this below)
• 3 cups of medium grain rice, do not rinse
• 1 cup of sweet peas, frozen is fine, but bring them to room temperature
• 1/3 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 tsp of saffron threads, lightly packed into the measuring spoon
• other spices to include salt, black pepper, bay leaf, etc.
  

Preparation

Dice the sausage into roughly quarter inch pieces and fry thoroughly in a large skillet. After the sausage has started to turn crisp, remove from the skillet. Saute the shrimp for about two minutes in the sausage oil to pick up color and spices; remove well before they are cooked through, as they will cook mainly in the broth. Season the chicken with salt and black pepper, and fry in the olive oil until golden brown, about 15 minutes as it too will cook in the broth. Set the chicken aside and save the remaining oil. In the same skillet, saute the onion and peppers until they start to wilt, just a few minutes, and remove. Save the oil.

The chicken broth is the essential element of the paella flavor. Best would be a homemade chicken stock, but I have found that Minor's chicken soup base is excellent, and certainly far better than any canned chicken broth that I have tried (Minor's can be found by a web search for soupbase.com). Heat the chicken broth to boiling in a sauce pan, and add all of the spices including the saffron.  key point 2) is to taste the broth after it has simmered for about ten minutes, and say 'hello' to your paella.  The broth is that important, even with all of the wonderful seafood, sausage and chicken you are going to add later. You are looking for a flavorful broth, though without being excessively salty, so carefully adjust the flavor by adding chicken bouillon cubes, or pepper, or herbs or additional saffron or whatever it takes.  Just how you should spice the broth will depend entirely upon the broth that you began with, and so I can only advise that you use your good judgment. The steps to here can be done several hours in advance.

There should be about 1/8 cup of oil remaining in the skillet used to saute the vegetables; heat it up, and pour the rice into the warm skillet. Turn the rice over medium heat for about 4 minutes. This will lightly coat each grain with the warm oil and pick up the flavor from the chicken and vegetables.

Start the gas grill a good 20 minutes early, and adjust for a fairly warm fire, about what you might use for fish, say, but not roaring hot as you might use for beef. Warm the paella pan, and add 5 3/4 cups of boiling broth (be careful!) followed by the rice, the vegetables and the sausage. Blend this together. You may find it easier to do this step inside over a stove. After a few minutes you can add the chicken pieces on edge as you will need all the possible the open space for other things (see the photo above). By this time the rice/broth mixture should be bubbling gently around the edges of the pan. Cook with a closed grill lid to trap the wood smoke and heat. If your fire is uneven, and it probably is, rotate or move the pan fairly often to avoid drastically uneven cooking.  Do not stir the rice after the first few minutes.

After about ten minutes push the clams into the rice, again edgewise, with the open end up. After another ten minutes have elapsed, poke the shrimp into the rice. After about another ten minutes -- 30 minutes total -- the paella should be nearly done; the liquid will be mostly absorbed, and the clams will have opened up (see the photo above). key point 3) is that by cooking the clams for 20 minutes and the shrimp for no more than 10 minutes, you can be sure they are safely cooked without being overcooked, which harms both. The tricky part of paella would seem to be to have the rice, the clams and the shrimp cooked just right at the same time.  But as I noted earlier, I have never had a serious problem with this, so it must be the case that medium grain rice is rather forgiving.  The perfect paella will have a crust of browned rice stuck to the bottom of the pan; aficionados consider this the prize.

Take the paella off of the fire (the handles will be amazingly hot) and cover it with a lid or tin foil.  Let it rest for another ten minutes to complete cooking the rice  A surprising amount of the remaining broth will be adsorbed during this resting period. Make sure that all of your guests have a chance to appreciate their beautiful creation before they take it apart.

Serve with green onions, lime, lemon and garlic toast. Paella goes well with red wine, white wine and beer (i.e., I am recommending all three).  If you really aim for a Spanish flair, sangria is also a great accompaniment. So are margaritas. Enjoy!

Thanks to Whit Anderson for helpful suggestions.