Recipes from The Perils of Paella

Isabel Almirall's Paella
Nancy Fairbanks

The following recipe is often called the lazy man's or rich man's paella and was first made for a young Barcelona gentleman who wanted something different early in the twentieth century. It caught on.

• Sauteé 1 chicken (cut into pieces, boned, halved and skinned) in a wide, flat-bottomed pan in a little olive oil until golden brown; then remove pieces to drain and set aside.
  
  
• Sauté in same oil until crisp ½ lb. boneless pork loin, cut into 8 thin scallops and 8 small pork sausages. Take out, drain, and set aside.
  
  
• Saueé in same oil, adding more if necessary, ½ lb. monkfish* and ½ lb. sea bass or halibut, each cut into 8 small pieces, skinned and boned, and 8 large peeled shrimp until lightly browned. Remove, drain and set aside.
  
  
• Sauté until onions soften a bit 3 chopped onions, and 4 medium artichoke hearts halved and sprinkled with lemon juice. Then add 2 peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes, stir, and add 1 cup chicken stock. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.
  
  
• Return chicken and pork scallops to pan add 1 pound short grain rice** and 4 red or green bell peppers, grilled, peeled, and cut into strips. Reserve 12 strips to decorate dish before serving.
  
  
• Add 4 ½ cups chicken stock and increase heat to medium high.
  
  
• Make a picada by grinding into a paste with a mortar and pestle 4 cloves minced garlic, 2 sprigs minced parsley, and 8 lightly roasted threads of saffron. Moisten with several drops of stock and make a paste. Then stir into the pan.
  
  
• Stir in shrimp, fish, and salt to taste.
  
  
• Boil 4 rock lobsters until pink, cut in half. Loosening flesh but leaving shells, set aside.
  
  
• When stock is partially evaporated, arrange sausages, lobster pieces, and reserved red pepper strips on top of rice. Continue cooking until rice is done and liquid evaporates (20-25 minutes total from second addition of chicken stock).
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• When finished, let paella stand 5 to 10 minutes; then serve for 6 to 8 people.

*Monkfish is delicious, firm, and mild, and we never have to see the actual creature in the United States. However, I saw a whole monkfish in La Boquería, Barcelona's ironwork and glass market. It has a large spade-shaped head with vicious-looking teeth and a scorpion tale with the delicious meat on the backbone in between™no dangerous little bones sprouting out from the spoine. But imagine seeing that creature on your plate, teeth bared!

**Rice came to Spain with the Moors in the eighth century but became an important crop when, in the thirteenth century, Jaime I of Aragon attempted to stem malaria epidemics by having rice planted in certain swampy parts of Valencia.

Carolyn Blue, "Have Fork, Will Travel." Bioxi Bay Times

More about The Perils of Paella
Nancy Fairbanks

While her husband gives an academic lecture nearby, Carolyn opts to spend time in Barcelona, soaking up the sights, eating out, and visiting her friend Roberta. Her first feast is for the eyes—a modern art museum where Roberta is a resident Miro scholar. There, Carolyn catches a performance art piece about death, planted a little too firmly in reality. One of the actors is not acting—she’s dead—as well as a dead ringer for Roberta. And now Carolyn is in the middle of a new investigation of a very unsavory crime, assisting the very reluctant Catalan homicide detective Ildefons Pujol i Serra, not to mention searching for Robbie’s runaway stepson Sammie and fending off local criminals.

ECard for Perils of Paella

(Culinary Mystery with Recipes)
Berkley (Prime Crime) , January 2004
Featuring: Carolyn Blue
304 pages ISBN: 042519390X
Paperback
$5.99

Also by Nancy Fairbanks:
Holy Guacamole! , November 2004
Chocolate Quake , April 2003
Death À L’Orange , June 2002
Truffled Feathers , December 2001
Crime Brûlée , April 2001

(Notify me via e-mail when Nancy Fairbanks releases a new book.)