“What in the name of good Jesus Christ are those?!” My classmate spat out through suppressed gags while pointing at the glass of the fish case.
It was my first cooking class in Madrid and we had just arrived at the local market to pick out fresh ingredients for the class itinerary. It hadn’t been five minutes since we got there before the disgusted student, a middle-aged Canadian woman on vacation with her husband, found something repugnant enough to beckon the name of JC to help her cope with it all. I followed her finger and found the offense in question: a heap of fleshy pink veinous blobs.
A zombie's delight.
I didn’t even have an answer for her, and truthfully, I was only half attentive to what was going on around me at that point. I, too, was fixated on what I can only assume to be HUMAN BRAINS (assumedly…probably) being sold in the fish case. The sight of cerebral matter hanging out with mackerel was almost as disturbing as when I was walking down the sidewalk earlier that morning through a stream of running water, only to look up and realize the “stream of running water” I was sloshing through was coming from an elderly bearded woman squatting and urinating on the walkway. Where was this lady’s ringmaster? I wasn’t sure what circus she ran away from that let her act like such an animal, but that is an image that will never leave my brain and may necessitate some Grade-A therapy when I get back to the States.
Still, I’m not 100% as to what those fleshy oblong lumps are. The sign dubiously read pescado fresca (i.e. “fresh fish”) and when I asked the fish vendor he just laughed and said, “yes! Yes!” before walking in the back room. Even he didn’t know.
In any case, shopping for fish — especially in a country with a veritable smorgasbord of available sea fare — is one part dinner preparation and four parts alien identification. Some of these things have the sort of teeth you can only find in nightmares or vagina dentata, while others have unidentifiable parts and purposes that make you just wish it were taco night. Take this beauty for instance:
Note that the thing above is what I now know to be a monkfish, but in Spain they call it a “rape.” As if it could be anymore terrifying. Later that day I Googled “how to prepare a rape” and judging from the upsetting results, I don’t think I was on the right trail. I’m also pretty sure Google sent my search to the police.
There are also these interesting little crustaceans that keep popping up in all the markets called percebes, or goose barnacles, that are said to have a taste reminiscent of crab. They remind me of miniature geoducks, which are phallic-shaped mollusks found in northwest North America, mostly within the Puget Sound. I haven’t had percebes yet, but it’s on my list of helpless things I want to eat before I leave Spain.
If you note the sign, you’ll see that at 36€ per kilo (or roughly $16 per pound), these suckers aren’t cheap. There are also strict laws in Spain about catching percebes in the wild due to depletion from overharvesting from their huge resale value. If caught, you’re looking at a punishment of 5000€ in fines and being turned into a eunuch. Or maybe just the fine, I’m not really clear on how Spanish law works.
At the market we made stops to purchase a few cuttlefish, mussels, whole unprepared prawns and produce from various vendors all while being told how to shop for each item, and then made our way back to the kitchen. During our preparation of the items we’d just bought, the chef tells us a story of how she got started in the field of cooking: when she was a little girl in Peru, her brother brought home a pet pigeon and one night she ended up killing and cooking it for her family. I eyeballed the pre-prepped poultry slices on the table and narrowed my glare back to the chef. That had better be chicken.
The dishes prepared during class were orange and cod magala salad, tortilla de patatas, and red wine poached pears with Greek yogurt, but most importantly — and central to this post — we prepared the world-renowned Spanish staple, paella. Surely I couldn’t come to Spain without dedicating a post to paella!
Though originating and flourishing in Valencia, paella is eaten heavily all throughout Spain. There are many variants in its ingredients ranging from snails and various seafood, meat from land mammals, as well as runner beans, artichokes, green beans, peppers or other vegetables, typically using what season ingredients are available. Regardless of what ingredients are put into the paella, the ingredients that are generally accepted as staples to the dish are a round rice such as calasparra or bomba and saffron. The rest is more or less available for free adaptation, though Valencians might take issue with that ideology.
It’s believed in Valencia that only certain ingredients can go into paella to be true paella and mixing seafood with meat in paella is a big no-no. However, in other regions of Spain, the general argument is that is that the ingredients don’t matter as much as how it’s prepared and whether or not the proper pan – called a paellera – is used. I personally used a raggedy old deep frying pan and it worked just as well as a paellera, so don’t worry too much about specific ingredients or tools. Use what you have on hand and paella it up!
PAELLA
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 30 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 6
Quick notes
Typically the only fat you will want to use in paella is a good-quality olive oil, but in my rendition I sautéed the chorizo first to release the spicy oil and used that to cook the remainder of the dish. If you want a more subdued chorizo taste, you can boil the chorizo for a couple of minutes prior to sautéing to release the excess oil and use olive oil instead.
Ingredients
- 5 ½ cups chicken stock
- 2 pinches saffron
- ½ lb chorizo, sliced
- 1 lb chicken cut into 1inch cubes
- 1-3 tbsp olive oil, as needed
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and whole
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1 onion, diced
- ½ tbsp sweet paprika
- 1 large tomato, seeded and diced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1/8 cup chopped parsley stems
- 2 ½ cups bomba or calasparra rice
- salt, to taste
- 2 lemons sliced
Instructions
- In a large saucepot warm chicken stock over medium heat. Once warm, rub 1 pinch of saffron between your fingers to release the oil and add to the broth. Keep broth warm while cooking all the other ingredients.
- In a paellera or a large, deep frying pan, sear chorizo links over medium heat making sure to not cook through. Allow to cook until seared and oils have been released. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Add chicken to the chorizo oil (adding extra olive oil, if needed) and sear, but do not cook thoroughly. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Add onions and red bell pepper and cook until soft. Lower heat and add garlic cloves to the pan and sauté until lightly brown and soft.
- Push onions and garlic to the side of the pan and add paprika to the oil, cooking for 1 minute. Add tomato paste, tomato and smash garlic cloves, mixing all ingredients in the pan together.
- Add rice, chopped parsley stems and salt and let rice brown for about 30 seconds.
- Add enough broth to the pan to cover the rice and stir once and once only.
- Continue to cook for 15 to 20 minutes, adding more broth as necessary to keep the rice fully covered. *Note: don’t worry about having some burnt rice at the bottom of the paella. This is called socarrat and is a delicacy in Spain, so burn away!
- Once most of the broth has been soaked up by the rice, remove from heat and cover with a tea towel or a loosely-placed lid and allow to sit for another 10 to 15 minutes.
- Top paella with sliced lemons and serve hot.
Angry fish says, "EAT PAELLA EVERY DAY."
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