The Paella Experiment

I am frequently in awe of Wife’s palate, much to her annoyance. She would literally whip something together and it just taste great. When I plastered her with questions on the theme of “how did you know it will come out this way.” She will usually give me the expression of “you would never understand.”

That does not stop me from experimenting. And I learned a couple of things about my own lack of culinary expertise, or training. I am a messy cook. I am also imprecise. You can say that I cook by instinct. That really just mean that no sane person should commit to eat what I cook beforehand, not even myself. Ha!

After the semi-disastrous Lasagna experiment, I was struck with idea of seafood Paella. After several rounds of Googling, I concluded that seafood Paella is a category, not a dish. Undeservingly creatively, I chose sausage, chicken, shrimps, clams, mussels, and scallops for the proteins; tomato, celery, bell pepper for vegetables; onion, garlic, and parsley for aromatics. Of course I got Saffron. For rice, I have whatever in the house. Yes, Paella is a complete dish.

It was a “one pan” method. Pan fry the sausage to begin with. Sauté onion to translucent, then add chicken. When chicken are cooked, add tomato, bell pepper, celery, and saffron. Within a minute, add broth and rice. Brought to boil, reduce to simmer, close the lid for about 10 minutes to cook the rice. Do not stir, check once in a while. When the rice look done, put in shrimps, clams, mussels, and scallops. Wait until the shellfish open. Add Parsley, turn off heat. Wait several minutes and serve. The rice were al dente. The part that were stuck on the pan was the best!

I declared the experiment a success!

This entry was posted in Witness to my life. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.