Recreating Europe #3: Pleasingly Palatable Paella

Just to continue my previous post, my hispanophile friend told me that the Spanish dinner that I whipped up indeed tasted authentic! Therefore, without further adieu, allow me to post the main recipe of that evening, which is again based on my Spanish cookbook--a recipe for paella. Just a quick note though, paella is typically made with mussels and not just clams. However, the seafood section in my local Safeway was out of mussels, so I simply used clams instead. You could use both mussels and clams, for extra seafood "oomph."

Seafood-Heavy Paella
1 lb of littleneck clams, scrubbed and presoaked in tepid water, to rid the clams of any grime or sand (you may also use scrubbed mussels, with beards removed)
1/2 cup of white wine
1 large Spanish onion, finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic, finely minced
2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
5 oz of chorizo
1/2 lb of calamari, cleaned and cut into bite-sized rings and tentacles
2 yellow, red, or orange bell peppers, cut into thin lengthwise strips
1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes
2 cups of chicken broth
2 generous pinches of good quality saffron
1 cup of short grain rice, preferably paella rice, if available
1 lb of medium-sized shell-on shrimp
1 1/2 cups of frozen peas, defrosted to room temperature

Place the white wine and clams into a small pot, and bring the clams to a rolling boil. When the clams have opened, immediately take the pot off the heat and set the clams aside, reserving the liquid separately.


In a large paella pan (or a large non-stick pan, if you do not have a paella pan), heat the olive oil on high heat, and saute the onions and garlic, until the onions are just translucent. Add the chorizo, and fry the meat for a few minutes, breaking up the large chorizo pieces with a wooden spoon.


Next, add the calamari and bell pepper strips to the cooking pan, and continue to cook the paella ingredients down for a few additional minutes. Then add the clam/wine broth, the tomatoes, the chicken broth, and the saffron; cover the pan with a lid; and bring the mixture to a boil. Add the rice, cover the paella again, and bring the rice to a simmer on medium heat. After 15 to 20 minutes, when the rice has absorbed more than half of the liquid, add the shrimp, and combine the paella ingredients thoroughly.

Continue to cook the paella on medium heat, stirring only occasionally, until all the liquid has been absorbed, the rice is no longer al dente, and the shrimp is cooked through (and not overcooked). You want the rice at the bottom of the pan to have formed crisp crust patches. Add the peas, and stir the entire paella mixture, ensuring that the ingredients and flavors are evenly distributed. Finally, take the pan off the heat, and nestle the open clams into the surface of the paella rice. Cover the rice with the lid, and allow the steam to heat the clams before serving the rice with wedges of lemon.


If you liked this post about my attempt to recreate the memorable meals my beau and I had in Europe, stay tuned for more, and check out the other posts in this series, including:

• Recreating Europe #1: Pizza the Wrong Way
  
• Recreating Europe #2: Spanish Tapas
  

Also, feel free to browse some of my other Spanish food posts, which are based out of my experiences in San Francisco:

• Tapas Dancing at Andalu
  
• Ticket to Spain Via Passionate Eater Express
• In Pictures: Paella in the Sky
  

Recreating Europe #2: Spanish Tapas

In continuation of my "Recreating Europe" series, I decided to make a non-elaborate Spanish-themed meal. Therefore, I invited an old college roommate of mine (who studied abroad in Barcelona, Spain) over for dinner two days ago. Not only did I want to see her, but I also wanted her honest critique of my attempt at making Spanish cuisine, including classic Spanish paella and palate gratifying tapas. Since I was going to be making labor-intensive paella, I wanted to keep my foray into making tapas relatively simple. Conveniently enough, my two favorite tapas include (1) the Spanish tortilla, made with Spanish onion, waxy potatoes, and eggs, and (2) croquettes made with creamy and decadent bechamel sauce. Thankfully, those two no-frills tapas are relatively easy to make in the kitchen.

Using a Spanish cookbook as my guide, I started with the Spanish tortilla. When we Americans think of the "tortilla," we think of the Mexican tortilla, a thin flatbread made of lard and flour, and not a potato and onion omelet, as a "tortilla" is known in Spain. I love making omelets (even the Taiwanese omelet), so I thought this undertaking would be quite easy. After following the recipe (but cutting the proportions in half), I found my resulting Spanish tortilla to be a little too greasy, with not enough potato. I think I accidentally halfed all of the ingredients, except for the oil, and my luggage scale did not work well to accurately measure 1/2 lb of potatoes.


Nevertheless, the flavor of the tortilla was exactly on point and I was excited to try making this dish again, as it only consisted of three ingredients (1) potatoes, (2) eggs, and (3) onions.


My second undertaking, the croquettes, however, were quite "killer-deluxe," if I might say so myself. The crackly, golden-brown croquettes were crisp and hearty, and just like excellent fritters, they had deliciously creamy insides. Here is an adapted recipe, so that you can try these chicken croquettes at home.

Chicken Croquettes, Spanish Tapas-Style
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 chicken breast, deboned and cubed in ~1/3 inch squares, with fat and skin discarded
3 garlic cloves, finely minced
2 tbsp of butter
1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
2/3 cup of milk
1 whole chicken egg, beaten
2 slices of frozen wheat bread, processed in the food processor to make fine bread crumbs
salt and pepper, to taste
hot oil, for deep-frying

First, heat the olive oil on high heat in a non-stick pan, and fry the garlic and the chicken breast until just cooked through and fragrant. Next, in another small pot, melt the butter on medium heat, and using a whisk, quickly stir in the flour and the milk, making sure there are no lumps. Add the salt and pepper to this "bechamel" sauce and cook until smooth and thick. Add the cooked chicken to the bechamel sauce, and combine thoroughly. Next, process the chicken and bechamel sauce in a food processor, until the mixture looks like tuna or chicken salad. Put the mixture into the freezer, to let it cool, so that it is easier to work with.


Roll the cooled (but sticky) chicken salad mixture into small cigars (a little shorter than the length of a breakfast sausage link, with the same thickness as a breakfast sausage link), dip the cigars into the egg, and then coat them with the breadcrumbs.


Heat vegetable oil in a small pot until a bamboo chopstick (or really thick skewer) bubbles (with carbonated soda pop-sized bubbles) when dipped in the oil. Fry the croquettes in batches, until golden brown.


Serve with lemon wedges, chopped Italian parsley, flowing sangria, and enjoy while hot! Oh, and what did my Spanish loving friend say about the meal? Stay tuned, and I will tell you when I post about the paella!

If you liked this post, check out my other post in the Recreating Europe series, and my other omelet posts:

• Recreating Europe #1: Pizza the Wrong Way
  
• Working Eater Series: Taiwanese Oyster Omelet
• Sunday Brunch Meme

Recreating Europe #1: Pizza the Wrong Way

If you are a reader of my blog, you may remember that I vowed to the world that I would try to recreate some of my memorable meals from Europe. My beau adored the pizza in Italy, so for the first entry in my "Recreating Europe" series, I wanted to try my hand at making Italian-style pizza.

Although I have regularly made homemade pizza, my pizza has never, ever come out tasting like Italian pizza. My dough is dense, heavy, and bready, rather than the light, chewy, tense, and elastic pizza dough of Italy. Therefore, for my first "Italian pizza," I was going to use semolina flour, instead of using all-purpose flour and plain ole' yeast from the supermarket. I went to the specialty food purveyor in the mall and bought a tiny $6.00 box of semolina pizza flour. After my purchase, I had completed step one in my "Italian pizza" mission.

Following the instructions on the box, I added water and kneaded the flour and water mixture until smooth. I immediately noticed the difference in the "feel" of the dough. The semolina dough was much moister and far more pliable than pizza doughs I had made in the past. Based on the silky and stretchy texture, it seemed like everything was going well.

Next, after using a rolling pin to roll out a wide crust, I judiciously spread a thin layer of marinara sauce on the face of the exposed dough surface and nestled a few slices of mozzarella cheese into the sauce. I didn't shred the cheese or blanket the entire pizza in a snowstorm of mozzarella, like how I usually do. Just a few slices, here and there. I then excitedly slid the picture-perfect pizza into the preheated oven, and victoriously wiped my soiled hands on my apron.

When the pizza came out of the oven after 10 short minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, I picked off verdant leaves of basil, and placed them decoratively on the pizza. Also, I grabbed a bottle of olive oil and drizzled a bit over the basil leaves. I was ready for the taste!

Unfortunately, as I bit into the pizza slice, I instantly felt a huge letdown (in my stomach and my mind).

The pizza was far too sugary to taste anything like authentic Italian pizza. In Italy, the only sweetness in marinara sauce is from the natural sugars in the tomatoes. In fact, Italian pizza sauce tastes saltier, than it does sweet. For my pizza sauce, I lazily used a glass jar of Chunky Ragu, "Tomato, Garlic, and Onion" flavor. I knew in advance that Ragu, Prego, and other American brands of marinara and spaghetti sauce are loaded with corn syrup and other cloying sweeteners, and yet I used Ragu on the pizza anyway. Mistake number one.

Also, the dough from my pizza even tasted sweet, and straight-up generic. In fact, it tasted like Costco pizza crust, which was a disconcerting reality for me, given that I paid $6.00 for a box of the pizza flour, and a whole, cooked Costco pizza only costs $10.00. Man. Mistake number two.

Finally, the instructions on the box of pizza flour didn't say anything about oiling the baking sheet before placing the pizza on the sheet. I read the instructions twice, but thought maybe the olive oil inside the dough would prevent the crust from sticking on the baking sheet. Trusting the instructions without question, was my mistake number three.

Well, my pizza night wasn't a complete failure. The pizza was decent, though it still tasted Americanized, and therefore would have been substantially benefited by extra toppings, such as pepperoni, sausage, artichokes, pineapple, peppers, mushrooms, anchovies, onions, zucchini, and more cheese. Also, I learned several valuable lessons for the next time. For instance, for my next Italian pizza, I will make my own dough with semolina flour and salt, and make my own marinara sauce, without any help from the American spaghetti sauce makers.