Speaking With My Stomach

Hey team, it’s Chris. Welcome to “Speaking With My Stomach,” a food column where we’ll be talking about food in all different kinds of ways; the history of foods and ingredients, how to cook them, and celebrating the love language that is universal.

This time, join me on a trip to Valencia, Spain, the birthplace of paella, Spain's most famous dish.

Spain’s capital city of Valencia is a breathtaking old city, founded during the tenure of the Roman Empire in 138 BC, and hopefully, someday I just might get to be there in person. For today, we’ll have to see it vicariously through our mind’s eye and through our taste buds by recreating today’s dish.

Spanish cuisine is known for its bold flavors and wealth of spices, and because of Valencia’s close proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, we get to experience the flavor rush of saffron in this rice-based delicacy.

If you have a shellfish allergy, don’t feel left out! The traditional paella valenciana recipe uses chicken, pork or rabbit, so feel welcome to follow along with just chicken or pork, because I’ll be using pork and sausage.

There’s a vague guideline to follow for paella and it can be hard to choose a line to stay in, so don’t! There is no one true paella because it was originally a peasant dish that could have anything from squid to prawns, to rabbit and eel.

You can make chorizo sausage paella, veggie paella, or any of the paellas we already discussed. The essential ingredients are saffron and rice. I will provide portion sizes as we go.

Saffron is a highly-priced spice that requires only a small quantity. Although it might be challenging to find, its worth is incomparable. In case of unavailability, turmeric can serve as a substitute but cannot match the flavor. Turmeric can also be used to achieve the desired color.

This dish is really fun because it has a “socarrat,” a crispy bottom rice layer, and a “sofrito,” a kind of sauce our rice layer will be cooked in.

I’m going to be really specific about the kind of rice we use because this dish puts a lot of focus on the mouthfeel, so we’ll need a short or medium grain round rice because it soaks up a lot more liquid with breaking down and becoming a mush. Bomba, Calasparra, and Senia are the recommended rice strains I found in my digging. Arborio rice works in a pinch and can be found in U.P. stores easily enough.

For the proteins of the paella, I'm using a sliced sausage (I won't be too picky), and pork short rib. Here's my blend for short rib seasoning:

• ½ tbsp salt

• ½ tbsp black pepper

• 1 tbsp cumin

• ½ tbsp paprika

• 1 tbsp garlic powder

• 1 tbsp onion powder

• ½ tsp cane sugar

You can either individually rub the seasoning onto the meat or toss it in the bowl to evenly coat it and save time. This should work for one to one and a half pounds of short rib.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. While the oven preheats, you can sear your meats to prep them for the oven. While your meat is searing and the oven is heating up, you can start the prep on your veggies by dicing your single white onion. I like my onion to be very finely diced, almost to the size of the rice, but you can go with what you feel.

Once the oven reaches the desired temperature, the short rib should cook for about 20 minutes. Since we are not roasting it in its entirety, it won't take all day. However, to be safe, please ensure that your pork is cooked to at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid food poisoning. At “Speaking With My Stomach,” we take food safety very seriously.

So anyways, meat is doing its thing. Let's talk about our wets, the sofrito. In one pan we need to have 3 cups of stock (could be chicken, veggie, or a shellfish base) and one cup of chardonnay. If you don't want to play with chardonnay, go for four cups of base. Take your precious saffron and place some strands (roughly half of your little pack) into the stock and put it on medium heat to simmer it.

Sofrito, a tomato sauce with sliced sausage. Photo by Chris Jaehnig.

Let the stock and saffron intermix, and let's focus on the sofrito. For the sofrito, we want between low and medium heat under our saucepan. In the pan, we'll want 1/3 cup of veggie oil, our diced onion, and two cloves of minced garlic. We want to cook these together until the oil is translucent, and the onion and garlic are just starting to brown.

Now we want to add two finely diced Roma tomatoes and stir them in with 1.5 teaspoons of paprika and half a teaspoon of salt, and my sliced sausage. Let the tomatoes cook down a little bit, and now we'll mix in the simmering stock and saffron sprigs, along with two cups of rice.

Stir the rice into the sofrito fully, and now level it out into the pan.

This part, making the socarrat, was tricky for me. With risotto, it’s stir-stir-stir so it doesn’t stick or burn, but to make socarrat, we simmer our rice, sofrito and broth together allowing it to carmelize and make a bit of a crunchy base. We don’t want it burnt or undercooked, so this part needs a lot of attention and patience.

It can take 15-20 minutes on medium heat to get this crunchy layer, but forgetting it completely or giving it too much of a window will burn it. We use short or medium grain rice because it absorbs a lot of liquid over a longer period of time, so this will help it stop from burning.

Once the socarrat has had time to do its thing, we'll want to thinly slice our pork short rib and place it along the edges of the pan in a radial pattern for serving.

Some experienced paella cooks report being able to hear a satisfying crackling sound when it's done, but I, unfortunately, pulled mine too soon, and I didn't get that perfect bottom—but it tasted phenomenal. The saffron is so subtle, but is a flavor you can't really liken to anything else, and was worth the treasure hunt I had to go on.

Finished paella with pork short rib. Photo by Chris Jaehnig.

This dish can be used as a side, or as a standalone dish and can feed 4-6, depending on how hungry everyone is. I fed five with mine and had a bit left over.

Thanks for hanging out, I hope this classic Spanish dish works for you, and until next time, don't forget to tip!

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