TROPICAL TASTE - Arroz con Mariscos or ShellfishPaella

The beauty of preparing a paella is that there are no fast rules to follow except to prepare a rice dish with other ingredients in it.  It can be just a vegetable paella, a chicken paella, a seafood paella or a combination of all of the above....You get the picture!

Paellas originated in the Valencia area of Spain where the Romans used to make one-pot meals while on marches.  The Moors who later came to settle in the area added their own touches, such as saffron and the use of more sophisticated ingredients.  The traditional rice to use is of course, Valencia rice, which absorbs a lot of liquid in each little grain.  I used Arborio, which is the Italian equivalent of Valencian and used mainly for the Italian risottos, which also call for a lot of liquid to be absorbed.  They can be used interchangeably.

Although most people feel intimidated to even try, paella is a fairly simple dish to prepare and along with a salad, fresh bread and a pitcher of sangria, it is a one-dish meal which always elicit great  raves from your guests.

The following recipe is just a guideline as you can adapt it as you wish.  I did so by adding beer to part of the liquid and adapting the shellfish to what we could find fresh at the market.  I did not add the fish the recipe calls for. I used lobster, scallops, clams, and mussels.

The original recipe is taken from icuban.com, the site for The 3 Guys from Miami.  Paellas are very popular among the Cubans who don't need much of a celebration to prepare one!

I hope you decide to try making one and use your own creativity to make it your own signature dish.  Buen Provecho!

Arroz con Mariscos
(Rice with Shellfish or Shellfish Paella)

Shrimp and lobster tail shells
2 quarts water
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups diced white onions
1-1/2 cups diced red bell pepper
1-1/2 cups diced green bell pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
6 cups shrimp broth (see step 1 below)
3 cups parboiled rice - I used uncooked Arborio rice 
1 cup chopped Roma tomatoes
1 teaspoon Bijol powder  (*)
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
6 strips bacon, diced
1 pound large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and butterflied (reserve shells)
1 pound bay scallops
2 (4 to 6-ounce) lobster tails
1/2 pound fish fillets (any ocean fish will do)
Salt, pepper, and ground cumin for seasoning
seafood
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup flour
2/3 cup frozen green peas

I added a few strips of red pimentos to the finished dish.

Make a broth by placing the shells from the shrimp and lobster in a 3-quart saucepan and filling it with about 2 quarts of lightly salted water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes.

Sauté the onions and red and green peppers in olive oil in a large sauté pan until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute, stirring frequently.

Remove the simmering broth from the heat and strain out all of the shells. Take 6 cups of the seafood broth and pour into a large 8-quart covered pot.

Add the cooked onion mixture, rice, tomatoes, Bijol powder, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until rice is fully cooked and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 30 to 45 minutes.

While the rice cooks, sauté the bacon in a large frying pan. Reduce heat to medium-low and let the fat render out of the bacon, about 10 minutes. Once the fat releases, remove the bacon and increase the temperature to high. Reserve bacon.

Sauté the shrimp, scallops and lobster tails in small batches in this hot bacon fat, starting with the peeled shrimp. You may add a little olive oil to the pan as necessary. Season each batch of seafood lightly with salt, pepper, and a little cumin. Sauté the seafood quickly, flipping once after a minute or
so, until the shrimp turn pink, and the scallops and lobster turn opaque, about 3 to 5 minutes. Do not overcook.

Remove each batch of seafood from pan and set aside somewhere where it will keep warm, but not continue cooking.

Sprinkle a little lemon juice on the fish fillets and lightly season them with salt, pepper and a little cumin. Dredge the fillets in the flour and fry them in the pan until just cooked through.

Fluff the rice up with a fork. Carefully fold the peas, bacon, and the cooked seafood into the cooked rice. Cover and cook over low heat for about 3 minutes-just long enough to make sure everything is hot. Serve immediately.

(*) Bijol annotto, achiote.  Information found in gourmetsleuth.com:

Bijol is also know as "achiote" or "annatto" powder and it is used for coloring rice. It is used to replace the very expensive saffron in many recipes. Bijol does not really duplicate the saffron flavor, but it does have a unique flavor all its own that is unmistakable in Cuban dishes.

Ingredient Substitutions: Achiote seed, ground in a coffee grinder

Yield: Enough for about 6 servings
Source: http://www.icuban.com/

		Sonia Martinez, Gather Food Correspondent
	Sonia's column, 'Tropical Taste' is a regular twice-monthly feature of Gather Essentials: Food. Sonia is a cookbook author and freelance food writer for several publications in Hawaii, and is also a Hawaii Island Journal restaurant reviewer in partnership with her son Anthony Mathis.  She lives in a beautiful rural rainforest area on the Big Island of Hawaii. You can keep up with Sonia's adventures and ongoing love affair with Hawaii by joining her network, or visiting her food & garden blog at Sonia Tastes Hawaii.