You can read about lobster anytime in Maine, so I’d like to tempt your palates with another worldly poor-man’s-food-turned-delicacy and a staple of a culture halfway around the globe — paella.
Traditionally prepared outside over an open wood fire and eaten directly from the pan, paella is the principal dish of Spain, and it’s fusion cooking at its finest. The required commonalities — saffron and rice — can be combined with regional seafood and meats to your own taste. Paella can include mussels, lobster, scallops and spicy chorizo sausage, but chicken, shrimp, pork — anything available — also work beautifully. I’ve even had delicious vegetarian versions.
Spanish cooking is exemplified by simple, subtle dishes, not overloaded with superfluous ingredients and spices. For paella, a tasty stock (lobster or fish, or even chicken broth) and seasonal vegetables are generally added, but additional spicing is unnecessary and discouraged, making this sophisticated, elegant and decadent dish actually surprisingly simple.
The traditional large, round, shallow paella pan is essential (in fact, the word paella comes from the Latin word patella meaning “shallow pan”). Its design allows the rice to be spread over the bottom in a single layer to soak up all of the delicious saffron-infused stock. Myson Products makes many sizes of polished carbon steel pans — a 12-inch pan ($19.99) will feed 2-3 people; 15-inch ($29.99) will feed 6; and an 18-inch ($39.99) is for 10.
Now for the rice and saffron. Run-of-the-mill white rice will not work; it won’t soak up the subtle flavors of the ingredients. Matiz Valenciano Paella Rice, a product of Spain, is $11.99 for 2.2 lbs. Genuine Spanish saffron is absolutely superior; cheaper versions will provide the color, but very little of the subtle flavor. Mas Portell Saffron, also imported from Spain, is $9.99 for one gram, but a little goes a long way.
Now you’re ready for the recipe. “Paella Paella” by Maria and Natalia Solis Ballinger ($19.95) has more than two dozen tempting paella recipes to choose from, plus several versions of sangria to quench the thirst you’ll work up while cooking.
Shellfish tools, including lobster crackers, picks and scoops, and seafood forks, will make everyone’s lives easier. Forks range from $.99 to $2.99 and there is an unending supply of crackers ranging from $6.99 to $14.99. A good choice might be a complete set; Amco makes a set of two crackers and six picks for $16.99.
Serve paella to your friends for a communal meal. They’ll want you to make it again and again, and you will too, with whatever happens to be fresh off the boat.
Leslie Khorsandi is the buyer for LeRoux Kitchen, with stores in Portland, Portsmouth and Martha’s Vineyard. Her parents owned a restaurant for 35 years and she came away with the perfect combination of eating to live (from her mom) and living to eat (that would be dad).