Paella

This was my first time making paella, and I feel as though it was long overdue. I've always been a seafood lover, and had access to the freshest since my family vacations along t

he gulf coast. So this past Sunday, I got together with my boyfriends family to make our version of seafood paella. 

Seafood Paella with Lemon Garlic Aioli

4 cups of arborio rice

8 cups of stock ( I used a  mix of chicken and seafood)

1 package of frozen peas

1 can of artichoke hearts

1 teaspoon of saffron

1 cup of chopped onion

1 cup of chopped tomato

1 cup of chopped bell pepper

1/2 pound of crawfish tails

1 pound shrimp with the shells on

1 pound of scallops

6 chicken thighs

1 pound of sea bass

1/2 pound of mussels

1/2 pound of andouille sausage

4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

6 cloves of garlic

To prepare, we cleaned all of the seafood and chopped all of our veggies before hand, since once you start a paella, everything seems to roll along fairly fast. 

To start, we sauteed the onion, pepper, and tomato in one tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat and cooked it until it turned soft, almost a paste like consistency. This is the basis of the paella and is called the soffrito. 

We then  browned the pieces of chicken over med-high heat in 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a an extra large, double handled skillet. This is not a typical paella pan, but worked out just fine. In the skillet we put in 6 cloves of garlic to roast in and flavor the oil, but we took them out when they started to brown since burned garlic has a very bitter taste to it. 

We browned the sausage and cooked the artichoke hearts, and in a separate pan seared the scallops.

 We put the soffrito in the paella pan, then added our 8 cups of stock and 4 cups of rice. We let that simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes of until the majority of the liquid if absorbed and then began adding the proteins. First the chicken and the sausage, then we nestled in the cleaned shrimp, sea bass, crawfish, mussels, and scallops into the hot rice mixture. They all cooked fairly quickly, in about 8 minutes. 

Finally, we added the artichokes and the cooked sausage back in with the frozen peas, giving them just enough time to warm through, about 4 minutes. Then we turned off the heat and put a clean towel over the pan to let everything rest and let all of the great flavors reaborb. Finally, we garnished the paella with lemon rounds and fresh parsley. 

interesting fact-

A sign of a great paella is a good socarrat, which is a caramelized crust on the bottom of your pan. 

Lemon Garlic Aioli

4 cloves of garlic 

1 tablespoon of salt

2 tablespoons of mayonnaise

2 tablespoons of whole milk yogurt

the juice and zest of 1 lemon

muddle garlic, salt, and lemon in a mortar and pestle. and the mayo and yogurt. stir and enjoy.

I hope someone tries to make paella for the first time after reading this, it's definitely worth it.