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When Robert and I arrived in Spain six years ago, after relocating from California, we immediately fell in love with the area, the lifestyle, the culture, the food, the history, and the people. We couldn’t get enough of the Sea and how it changes daily. The significant places to see seemed endless. The Greeks and the Romans were here, of course, but the Phoenicians also? And the Carthaginians? It was like arriving somewhere you’d never been before and realizing you were home. And one of the first things we wanted was paella! After all, Spain is famous for it, right?
Despite our best efforts to find the perfect paella, we found initially that the offerings could only be described as lacking. They were often mushy, lacking that perfect crispy crust (the socorrat) you expect. And, word to the wise, if any restaurant tells you that you can order freshly made paella and have it served in 20 minutes, they are definitely lying to you!
Paella has a rich and complex history with Moorish influence that spans over 1,000 years, and can be traced back to the midday meals of farmworkers in the Valencian countryside. They would gather whatever ingredients they could find in the rice fields, including tomatoes, onions, snails, and occasionally rabbit or duck. This rustic, improvised dish was cooked in a large, shallow pan over an open flame. Not having the right equipment served as a good excuse for me not to attempt paella for a long time; the truth is I was intimidated. But earlier this year we took a trip to Valencia, paella’s birthplace, and I knew the time had come to buy an authentic paellera. So I did…with a renewed determination to take the plunge.
Grilled Vegetable Paella
For my maiden paella voyage, I settled on Steven’s Paella “Primavera” on the Grill recipe from Planet Barbecue! Steven recommends ideally using 2 charcoal grills, one for the vegetables and the other for the rice. We only have one charcoal grill, so we added wood chunks and pre-grilled the veggies. It worked great. The smokiness that comes from grilling the paella over live fire is markedly different from other paellas we’ve had which were made on the stove. It is definitely worth doing over live fire.
We fired up the charcoal using our brand new Start’N Grill, and off we went! I discovered pretty quickly that making paella requires a lot of attention to timing and it’s important to make sure you have your ingredients ready to go. The reality is that I burned the socorrat a bit, but my husband still said it was the best paella he had ever had, so I’ll take that as a win!
Paella cooking tips for beginners
- The rice is very important! It must be Bomba or Calasparra to be considered paella, which is a special type of rice that absorbs all those luscious flavors without getting mushy.
- Definitely have everything mise en place, a French phrase referring to having all your ingredients ready—chopping, measuring, organizing and arranging—prior to cooking. This is super important with paella—it waits for no one!
- Once you start, you have to stick with it and you’re on a strict schedule if you want to achieve the best results.
- “Listen to the rice”—Bernie Pass, a Bronze-level member of the Barbecue Bible 500 Club gave me some great advice, which was to “listen to the rice”. He explained how the sound changes subtly as the socorrat approaches the finish line.
I have since done a second version of paella using Steven’s Grilled Vegetable Paella from How to Grill Vegetables, to which I added some chicken and pork. I didn’t burn the socorrat this time, and all partakers said it was scrumptious. With paella, I’m betting that the old adage of “practice makes perfect” is spot on!
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