Alright Food Tuber. I'm Omar Allibhoy, I'm a chef
and I've been cooking Spanish food since I was a little boy.
Today I'm going to be cooking the world-famous
the Spanish national Paella Valenciana.
If there is a dish in Spain that brings family together it will be paella.
I'm putting my reputation on the line, because Balenthenos are
very particular with this recipe, like Napolatanos are with
their pizza. So I have a quite a lot of ingredients here
Artichoke, green beans, broad beans, as you can see. Chicken and rabbit
the two main meats. The real heroes of this dish.
This stuff is just fundamental to the recipe. Essentially.
So lets start, okay. I'm just heating up
this beautiful paella pan. I'm going to start preparing the saffron.
Okay, in Spanish saffron is the most expensive thing in the world. The clove is very
small
and its difficult and hard to find outside of spring.
What makes it different, is that it is toasted.
As supposed to sun dried. We're going to use this from
another country and toast it ourselves. Okay, so I'm just going to
fold it. Kind of an envelope.
Then I'm going to put it
into this hot pan just for a few seconds,
and that will give extra fragrance, and it will be easier to release all that
beautiful aromas and the smokiness
into the stock. I've had it for about 10 seconds on each side,
that is enough. I have the chicken and the rabbit. And first thing
a generous amount of salt. There's a lot of ingredients going into that pan.
Good olive oil extra virgin always. You see how it's cracking, the salt
The pan is really hot and we're going to go with the meat. Have a couple of
chicken thighs,
with the bone and the skin, cut in half, and sort of like a
quarter of rabbit approximately.
But again, you cannot get rabbit, or you don't like it,
just put some more chicken in or pork rib, that will do.
We need to cook this meat until it's
really dark.
This high heat has given the meat a really nice brown caramelized colour
and flavour. I'm just going to make a little space for the veggies.
I have some runner beans already prepared, and some broad beans.
And I want this to get really brown again. At this point I need to add the artichoke.
Very fundamental ingredient in the paella.
Take the outer leaves from the bottom of the flower. Gonna cut the stalk.
Peel the stalk. You can either do it with a
paring knife. With the pealer cut the artichoke
around here. Peel it with a paring knife on the outer part
a leave sort of like a diamond
shape, like a mushroom. Cut it in half. Cut in quarter
and this inner hair, which is inside,
which is not edible we just need to remove it.
Just going to do the same with all this quarter's. I'm going to add a couple of artichokes
in total
so that it all browns nicely. This is not a recipe that needs a lot of
stirring.
Actually. Otherwise juices will be released
and it will start poaching and boiling, and this isn't what we're looking for.
Gonna go with the next ingredient. Garlic. Very important in the Spanish cuisine.
Just gonna finely chop it. A couple of garlic pills for this recipe will be
sufficient.
I've put the heat down. Give it a little stir,
and I'm not gonna leave it there for too long. Maybe just about a minute.
or thirty seconds even depending on the heat.
Smoked paprika as the world knows it.
That's what gives fantastic favour to a lot of Spanish recipes.
Give it a little stir, and I'm going to add straight away
the grated tomatoes. I have two grated tomatoes over here
and I think I'm only going to use
half. Put the heat, right back up. And now it's time for a stirring.
As well, this tomato will cook
in about two minutes, no more. Take a look at this.
Really nicely browned loads of colour.
Loads of depth. You know even the veggies they are no longer green. This is
not an al dente good-looking type of thing.
All those reds, all those browns means flavour.
I have a stock here. I'm just gonna pour this chicken stock
one-and-a-half liters. Give it a little
stir. Lets go back to the saffron. Going to use
about half a gram. Crush it a bit so that it spreads
out a little bit more. Let's bring this to the boil.
And add the rice.
And now with the rice. Okay I'm going to be using about 250 grams which is half of this packet.
But if you don't find a Spanish rice, or something that's called paella rice
just use short-grain rice, okay. Never use basmati or jasmine, or long-grain in
general.
It is one of the rices which absorbs the most water.
Take a quick look. Look at the colour.
I'm just going to add around 250
grams of this rice. Give it a little stir.
Make sure either spreads quite nicely. Just leave it for a couple a minute so
that they
rice flattens and evens, and then we'll just let it be.
Okay, this is getting back up to the
boil. Last stir. I will let it cook on the highest heat
for 10 minutes. Then will lower it down for another six
minutes, approximately until it's ready. You can see here
that this part, the water is below the rice,
and that one is just over there. It's very important that you don't stir your paella
at any point, after the begin, because
otherwise the rice will release the starch, and it will become stodgy.
We are going to add the rosemary, three sprigs.
We're going to create a little bit of a lead. I'm going to
lower down the heat, because this rice will still need
about five minutes on the low heat,
and another five minutes resting, and I think that will be
the perfect rice, with a perfect socarrat underneath.
Which is the crispy bit that forms through
all that oils and fats that goes down and a bit of the
starch of the rice how it crispens up at the bottom.
That's the most tasty part.
It's been resting for about 4-5 minutes, so now is the time to unveil it.
Mm it smells beautiful. The rice looks like it's perfectly cooked.
You can see a bit of the burnt bits on the side.
That's exactly what I was looking for. I have to say and the socarrat on the
bottom.
Normally, just take the rosemary off put it into one side,
and you serve a mix of the top, the bottom, the side, the centre. Just so
that
everyone gets a bit of this part.
Nice piece of meat, a little bit of the rice.
Mixed with a socarrat, always scraping the bottom.
In many families they like it with
a wedge of lemon. They would put it on the side and just squish it yourself.
Okay. So we never squish it all over.
mmm
It's amazing how tasty this rice dish can be. Every aroma every fragrance and
spices,
vegetables, I mean it's all in, and there you go.
Paella. Spanish national dish. If you want
me to make any other Spanish recipe please say it on the comment box below
and I'll do my best. You're looking for a great drink to go with this paella
going to Drinks Tube, and there is a fantastic daiquiri.
This recipe and loads more classic Spanish dishes are
in my book. Tapas Revolution.