Embracing Your Inner Spaniard with Farmers Market Paella

When I completed the application for the Next Food Network Star, I had to tell them what I considered to be my three signature dishes - dishes that highlight your cooking style or are particularly sought after by your friends and family. The first dish was easy - pizza. My crazy pizza experiments have become quite the hit with my friends.

But, what were my other two dishes? I knew the answer, but I hesitated to write it down because I had never made them for the blog. If the idea of sustainable cooking was my pitch, how could I answer with two things I'd never cooked sustainably. I was unnerved that I had neglected to make two of my favorite things for Austin Farm to Table.

I used to make paella and ravioli regularly for my friends and family, but had gotten out of the habit. When I down-sized living quarters three years ago, I put about half my stuff in storage including my paella pan and pasta making equipment. With limited cabinet space, only the bare essentials moved with me.

Now in a bigger place, I spent time this summer excavating my things from their storage Siberia. With all my cooking equipment back home, I'm not sure how I made it so long without all these great supplies. I almost hugged my paella pan. I did hug my food processor.

From the first time I tried paella, I knew it was going to be one of my favorite dishes. I loved how the flavors melded together and that it could be so versatile, mixing up ingredients based on what was available. I love how a meat paella can taste so different than a seafood paella even though they have the same base ingredients.

I was with my Mom the first time I ate paella and she and her husband rewarded my enthusiasm for this new dish by giving me a paella pan for Christmas that year. My very own paella pan!!!! I quickly began experimenting.

In some ways, I guess this became one of my signature dishes because no one else had a paella pan. But, I like to think I've gotten pretty good at building a nice paella. The original recipe I used came from the back of the label on the pan and it is a solid starting point. Over time, I've collected others including a few from The New Basics Cookbook and Coleman Andrews' Catalan Cuisine (I have the old edition, haven't tried the new edition).

For my most recent paella experiment, I decided to create a farmers market paella using what I could find at the market that day. My standard is a paella with chicken, shrimp, mussels and chorizo, so this was going to take some creativity. Clearly the mussels were out. I chose chicken from Countryside Family Farm and shrimp from San Miguel Seafood.

I couldn't find chorizo at either the Downtown or Sunset Valley Markets so I settled on a hot pan sausage from Full Quiver (at Sunset Valley). While having a different flavor than the chorizo, the sausage had a nice spiciness and proved a good substitute. I have since learned that Jesse Griffiths at Dai Due will custom make local chorizo for you from his butcher shop for $10/lb with a 5 lb minimum. He also puts chorizo on his weekly butcher shop menu on occasion and you can buy 1 lb for $10. If you aren't on the Dai Due e-mail list, I highly recommend that you subscribe.

If you don't have a paella pan, you could use a large skillet. If, like me, you don't have a grill on which you can evenly distribute the heat across the bottom of the pan, you can use two burners on your stove. Using two stove burners means that the center doesn't get as hot as the outsides, so you have to turn the paella from the middle to the outsides to make sure you cook things evenly. You should also rotate the pan about a 1/4 turn every 5 minutes.

Paella is a labor of love as it does take some time to prep everything, but I hope that you find it's worth it. There is something truly delightful about sharing a pan of paella with friends and family. My neighbors were definitely excited to be the beneficiaries of leftover paella.

Farmers Market Paella

about 10 servings

5 tbsps olive oil
2 bell peppers, seeded and chopped (I like using different colors if available to add visual appeal to the dish)
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 large tomatoes - peeled and chopped
1 1/2 cup long grain white rice
2 tsp salt
1 lb spicy pan sausage or chorizo (I used hot pan sausage from Full Quiver)
1 tsp saffron threads (this is about 2 pinches; I find it really difficult to "measure" saffron threads)
3 1/2 cups chicken stock
5 tbsps white wine
1 bay leaf
1 lb shrimp; remove the heads, but leave them in the shell
2 lbs chicken cut into pieces

Place the chicken in a baking dish and brush it with about 1 tbsp olive oil. Broil for 20 minutes, turning at least once.

Heat remaining olive oil in paella pan. Add pepper and onions.Cook until tender. Add garlic and tomato. Stir in the rice, salt and saffron. Be sure the rice is well coated with oil. Add chicken stock, white wine, sausage and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer uncovered for 25-30 minutes over a steady even heat. If you are using a stove top, rotate the paella pan about 90 degrees every 5 minutes and turn the rice mixture from the middle to the outside of the pans to make sure the ingredients cook evenly.

Taste the rice to make sure it is close to being done and then add the shrimp and chicken in the last 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cover the pan with foil. Allow to stand 10 minutes to absorb all the flavors.

If the rice is not cooking, you can put the paella in the oven at 350 degrees instead of trying to cook over the burners on the stove. Put it in the oven before you add the shrimp and chicken. Once the rice reaches the correct tenderness, you can add the shrimp and chicken until the shrimp is cooked – about 5 minutes.