🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <25473@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, kilpat@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Andrew 
Kilpatrick) writes:
> Path: netnews!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!darwin.sura.net!dtix!oasys!kilpat
> From: kilpat@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Andrew Kilpatrick)
> Newsgroups: dc.dining
> Subject: What is Paella?
> Message-ID: <25473@oasys.dt.navy.mil>
> Date: 24 Sep 92 12:50:15 GMT
> Reply-To: kilpat@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Andrew Kilpatrick)
> Distribution: dc
> Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD
> Lines: 3
> 
> 
> 
> Pardon my ignorance but can anyone tell me what Paella is?

Paella is the Spanish for Pilau - a dish with rice and whatever is available 
to make the dish more interesting.  There are no set rules as to the 
ingredients and the contents vary enormously according to region, season, 
and, of course, wealth.  (Poor folks do not make Lobster Paella, but I have 
had excellent Lobster Paella in Madrid.)  The traditional paella is the 
Paella Valenciana (from Valencia) - usual ingredients include shrimps, squid, 
mussels, clams, peppers, peas, chicken, pork, sausage - but dominantly 
seafood.  In a fancy restaurant, you would expect lots of seafood, but in the 
bars of Seville and Cordoba, where I used to live, bars would serve simple 
paellas at very low prices - just chicken, peas, and perhaps a few clams.  
The rice is short grained - very similar to the one used in risotto.  Pudding 
rice is a good substitute - the important criterion is that it absorbs a lot 
of liquid for good flavor.  It is cooked in a flat open pan - frequently on 
an open fire - it is difficult to cook a large paella evenly on a stove top - 
the pan is too big for a single burner.

Paella is a highly decorative dish - the rices is always colored bright 
yellow - correctly with saffron - but in Spain it is very common to find 
yellow dye - these little packets used to be given as change in the market!

My problem with the quest for Spanish food in the United States is that most 
restaurants that promote themselves as Spanish are in fact Latin American - 
and paella is simply not a specialty of Central and South America

Louis