Paella made simple, tasty and authentic
Wow guests at your next dinner party with this casual, one-pot meal
There are no recipes at the Escuela de Arroces y Paella Valenciana cooking school in elegant Valencia, the heart of Spain’s rice-growing region.
Instead, the chef announced we’d use all our senses to cook one of Spain’s most famous dishes. He says it takes one and a half hours to slowly cook the meat and vegetables and ensure the rice absorbs all their rich flavours, enhanced with a spoonful of sweet smoked paprika (pimenton).
Apparently cooking a proper paella also involves dancing around the wide shallow pan as it bubbles away on the burner and stopping to admonish it, with a wagging finger, to cook properly and not disappoint us.
As the chicken and rabbit pieces sputtered and browned in an alarming amount of olive oil, pal Janie and I and a cheerful Australian couple prepared our vegetables, sautéing them separately and moving them to the edge of the pan when cooked.
I was most intrigued by the long, wide flat green beans Spaniards call ferraura (runner beans), and the even wider, leathery garrofon. We cut both into pieces and added them to the pan along with quartered baby artichokes.
Back home, I borrowed a paella pan (one friend dragged his from Spain only to find the same pan in Toronto’s Chinatown for less), then discovered long, wide imported runner beans at my green grocer and packages of “Euro Beans” at the supermarket from Del Fresco greenhouses in Leamington, which imports the seeds from Holland.
Joe Belfiore, a senior category manager at Burnac Produce, says the long handsome beans he imports from Belgium and Spain are beloved by European customers, particularly the Portuguese, and by millennials looking for something different from regular green beans, though they’re all from the snap bean family.
Paella is the perfect recipe for these long, meaty beans, and this casual, one-pot meal is perfect for a long-weekend dinner party.
Buy and store
Look for imported runner beans imported from Belgium or Spain at Pusateri’s, Fiesta Farms, Longo’s, Tavora Foods and more from now until December.
DelFresco’s “Euro Bean” in 340-gram packages will be back in production from around Aug. 10 until November at Metro, Sobeys and Farm Boy.
Look for long, smooth, freshlooking beans that snap rather than bend when broken. Avoid bumpy pods and brown scars.
Store in a plastic bag and refrigerate up to a week.
Prep
Before using, rinse and cut off stem ends by lining up beans on a cutting board and cutting several at once.
Best cooked lightly or in long, slow-cooked dishes.
Serve
Use runner beans in any recipe that calls for green beans, from salads and soup to stews.
Roast with a little olive oil at 450 F (230 C), stirring once, until tender and browned, 25 to 35 minutes.
Mastronardi blanches his Euro beans in boiling water for two minutes then cools them in an ice bath to keep their bright green colour before sautéing with pancetta.
Belfiore garnishes his blanched beans with olive oil and garlic.
Add to a Greek salad with chopped red pepper, tomato and crumbled feta cheese. Blanch and serve with a dip. Pickle with cider vinegar and fresh dill.
Pair with tomatoes, onions, corn, crisp bacon, toasted walnuts or almonds, lemon, tarragon, dill, chives, sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.
Paella Valenciana
Star Tested
The more paella you cook, the more delicious it will be, said our teacher. Here’s my simplified version. If you can’t find runner beans, use locallygrown green beans. Our Spanish paella had rabbit and snails instead of chorizo. 2 tbsp (30 mL) olive oil
6 chicken thighs with bone and skin (1.5 lb/680 g)
8 oz (225 g) runner beans, cut on diagonal in 2-inch (5-cm) pieces
2 large sweet peppers, 1 red 1 yellow
3 roma tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
1 tsp (5 mL) smoked paprika (sweet pimenton)
227 g mild chorizo sausage (try Duero brand), sliced 1/4-inch (.5-cm) thick
4 cups (1 L) sodium-reduced chicken stock Few threads saffron
1 1/4 cups (310 mL) short grain Spanish or Italian Carnaroli rice
1 rosemary sprig Heat oil in a 36-cm paella pan or wide skillet on medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Place skin-side down in hot pan and cook until well-browned on all sides. Remove with tongs and keep warm.
Add beans to hot pan and sauté 3 minutes. Add peppers and sauté another 2 minutes. Move vegetables to edge of pan. Grate tomato halves, cut-side down, over a box grater. Discard skin. Add pulp and juice to centre of hot pan and add salt to taste. Stir about 5 minutes or until juice evaporates.
Add pimenton and stir tomatoes and vegetables together, mixing well. Stir chicken broth into pan. Bring to a boil, then sprinkle with crumbled saffron. Add salt to taste and stir in rice. Nestle chicken thighs and chorizo chunks around pan and place rosemary sprig on top. Remove after 10 minutes.
Reduce heat to simmer and cook, uncovered, about 20 minutes, pressing down rice that floats to the top. Cook until rice is tender and paella is very thick. If the rice is still firm, add liquid and cover for a few minutes more. Let sit 5 minutes, place pan on the table and serve with a wooden spoon.
Makes 4 servings.