The last of the smoked seafood trio, this was a play on paella. I love paella. It is one of my favorite dishes to make and to eat, and I do so pretty often. My favorite version is with Spanish chorizo, shrimp, lemon, saffron rice, and some aromatics (with additional seafood included if I'm feeling spendy).

The shrimp chorizo was ripped almost directly from Ideas In Food (with some differences in spicing, particularly with my addition of smoked paprika). I bound it with an egg white, rather than using Activa, and it worked fine.

Particularly for traditionalists, one of the hallmarks of a proper paella is the crusty rice that forms on the bottom of the pot. There's even a name for it: soccarat. My idea was to make soccarat without having to make a full paella. I wanted it to be crispy and crusty like the bottom of the pot, but without being dried out. Here's how I did it:

Saffron Soccarat
600g saffron stock
6g gellan F (1%)
150g Bomba rice

Make saffron stock by toasting a bit of pimenton with as much saffron as you're willing to use, then boiling 600g water with it for five minutes. Turn off the heat and let the stock cool to room temperature. Strain the liquid into a quart container, reserving saffron threads for later. Add enough water so that you have 600g of the stock.

Add the gellan to the saffron stock and blend with an immersion blender to shear in the gellan. Transfer the mixture back to a saucepan.

Turn oven to 400F. Lay out a Silpat-lined 1/4-sheet pan. Once oven has come up to temperature, bring saffron-gellan mixture to a boil, whisking constantly. Meanwhile, heat up separate pan on medium-high heat. Once hot, add one tablespoon olive oil and wait a few seconds. Then add the rice, tossing frequently to toast the rice, then turn the heat down to medium-low. Put sheet pan into the oven (with nothing but the Silpat).

Once mixture is boiling, add saffron threads back in, then turn off the heat. Take sheet pan out of the oven. Pour the hydrated saffron-gellan liquid into the sheet pan. Make sure any splattering has stopped, then quickly scatter all of the rice into the sheetpan, trying to be as even as possible. Using a fork or spoon, even out the rice, then put sheet pan in the oven.

Bake for forty minutes, shaking the pan after the first ten minutes, and rotating the pan every ten minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for twenty minutes, then place in the refrigerator for at least twenty minutes. Remove pan and cut around edges of rice, then pull out rice-covered Silpat. Slide the rice off of the Silpat and onto a cutting board. Portion. Keep in an airtight container up to one week.

To serve, fry in a pan with a bit of olive oil, crispy side down.

Posted by Barzelay on 2009/11/25 @ 18:27 | Comments (4) | Food Additives, Lazy Bear, Seafood, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese

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