Paella 2.0

I made paella a few weeks ago, and it was good...but not great. I used my biggest skillet, long grain white rice, and I bought some chorizo from the butcher counter at Whole Foods. I don't know if they mislabeled the chorizo, or put the wrong spices in it, or what...but it wasn't working. And I thought - if I'm going to do this again, I need to do it right. Go big or go home!



I bought a proper paella pan, Spanish chorizo, and Calasparra "Bomba" rice from La Tienda. No messing around this time.





I had been using long grain white rice because it was the best option at the store. Even though arborio rice is short grain I didn't want to use it because I thought it might make the paella too creamy and risotto-like. But the Bomba rice is short grain and expands perfectly without being sticky.



The chorizo was so good and spicy. It's cured so I just threw it into the pan along with the shellfish.



And obviously, the pan made a big difference. It's bigger than my skillet so it allowed everything to be properly spread out, especially since I added chicken this time so there was even more in the pan. The best part - the crust on the bottom, called the socarrat. You can see a nice chunk of it in the foreground of this picture.



Yum! The paella turned out really, really well this time with all the proper ingredients. And I used a hot Spanish paprika which made everything nice and spicy. The chicken was a nice addition - cooked in the oven, chopped, and added along with the shellfish. I also added a little 2 ounce jar of sliced piquillo peppers. Except for the nice steam burn I gave myself on a couple of my fingers, it was a perfect meal. Here's the recipe.