La Paella de Carne del Abuelo Joaquín

I. Introduction

This is the paella of Paco’s family passed through generations of the men of the Milán family, but people from Valencia don’t cook the paella like this and are very strict about their recipes. This is therefore not intended to be an official Valencian recipe.

II. Ingredients

1. 1-2 fresh bell peppers for grilling (red or yellow or a combination)
2. 6-7 cloves of garlic
3. 2-3 green peppers for frying
4. 2 bunches of Baguio beans (can substitute half with FRESH (NOT CANNED) artichokes if preferred)
5. 1 bunch of parsley. Try to get the flat kind but if you can only find the round kind that will do
6. 1 small bowl of green peas. If you can get fresh ones great but frozen is also okay
7. 1 piece of pork tenderloin
8. 1-2 slabs of baby back ribs (tell Santi’s to cut the ribs across and along the bones)
9. 2 cubes of pork bouillon (buy Knorr if you like us do not have the time to make your own)
10. 1 small glass bottle of saffron from La Mancha. If you are unable to procure this specific kind, you can also try Murcian or Valencian saffron. If not, you can buy the kind in Santi’s.
11. 800 grams-1 kilo of fresh tomatoes for cooking or diced tomatoes in case you can’t find any good fresh ones
12. Olive oil
13. 1 large glass of dry white wine
14. 300-400 grams of rice bomba

Note: An important kitchen tool for this recipe is the pot where you cook the paella. You can use the traditional paellera or a large pan or a big open pot (like what we are using). Using a pan will result in a drier paella, while using a pot will result in a wetter paella. What’s important is that the base of the pan or pot is very broad so that the paella receives enough consistent heat. This will allow the ingredients to reduce properly in the pan or pot.

III. Prep Steps

1. Take the bell pepper and wash it very well. Grab a sheet of foil and make a little house for the pepper.

Put the little house with the pepper in the oven and crank up the heat to 270-280 degrees and turn the oven fan on. Check this from time to time while going through the next steps – the end result should be totally black (see picture in Step 9), which means you will have to move the pepper around in the oven occasionally.

2. While that is happening, it’s time to prep the other ingredients. Peel the garlic teeth and don’t forget to remove the stems inside by slicing the garlic tooth in half and using a small knife to pop out the stem inside, like in the picture below.

Set the garlic aside.

3. Wash the green peppers and remove the seeds and hard parts inside. Cut them into small squares, like so, and set aside:

4. Wash the Baguio beans and remove the dry parts (which are the black dots) and the ends. Slice in half and set aside.

5. Take the parsley and wash it very well. Pull out only the leaves and throw the stems away. Set the parsley leaves aside.

6. Cut the pork tenderloin into thick cubes like so:

7. Boil some water.

8. Put the bouillon cubes in a small glass and the saffron in another small glass.

Pour boiling water into both glasses. Dissolve the bouillon cubes but leave the saffron in its glass

alone. You should now have assembled all your ingredients like this:

9. Go back to your bell pepper; it should look almost black like this:

Once it does, turn your oven off and leave the bell pepper to cool inside slowly.

IV. Cooking Steps

Note: the idea is to cook the vegetables and meat separately at first and therefore to keep adding their flavors into the pot of oil.

10. Take your paella pot and put enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Crank up the heat to medium-high. Put in all the garlic EXCEPT one tooth. Fry the garlic in the pot until brown like this (around five minutes):

DO NOT THROW THE OIL AWAY! LEAVE IT IN THE POT.

11. On the side, put the tomatoes, parsley, the remaining tooth of fresh garlic, and the fried garlic in a blender. Leave it for now.

12. In the same oil you fried the garlic, fry the green peppers in medium-high heat. Put a round of salt. Wait until it gets soft and looks like this (around five minutes). Remove the green peppers and set aside:

13. Drop the Baguio beans/artichokes into the same pot with the same oil and the same heat. Put salt again. Cook for around 5 minutes or until beans look like these.

Remove the Baguio beans and set aside.

14. Take your blackened bell pepper. Remove all the skin and the seeds; remove them while sticking the pepper under running water. Set the bell pepper aside.

15. You may have to add more olive oil into your pot at this point. Then, put the ribs into the pot and add some salt and pepper. Cook in the same medium-high heat a bit, until they are kind of cooked outside but not yet cooked inside. Add the tenderloin and wait until both the tenderloin and the ribs are both cooked outside but not necessarily inside. Pour the white wine into the pot and wait until there’s only a little bit of wine left. You can do the next step while waiting for the wine to evaporate.

16. Go back to your blender. Add a small piece of the grilled bell pepper. See visual aid below:

Blend the mixture until the ingredients are fully mixed together, a bit like a salsa.

17. Does your pot of meat and wine look like this now?

18. If yes, pour your tomato blended mixture into the pot. You can increase the heat at this point. Wait until the tomatoes are cooked and no longer watery, which takes about twenty minutes. Stir carefully once in a while. It should look like this at the end:

Note: For the next steps, monitor the heat, the mixture shouldn’t bubble everywhere but simmer gently. This will entail some intuitive raising and lowering of the heat. The point is for the temperature of the mixture to remain constant while cold ingredients are added to the hot mixture.

19. Add the rice bomba into the pot and stir. When the rice starts sticking a little bit to the bottom of the pot (which you can tell by scraping your wooden spatula against the bottom of the pot), add the saffron and the bouillon.

20. Wait for the water to evaporate until it is significantly gone and until the rice is cooked a bit harder than al dente (around fifteen minutes?). As time goes by, if the water is pretty much evaporated but the rice is still very hard, you may need to add a bit of water. You can increase the heat a bit.

21. Once the rice is al dente (more than doubled in size) and the mixture looks like this:

Add the peas and wait until the mixture boils again for a few minutes. The taste of the peas should mix with everything else.

22. Afterwards, add the green pepper into the pot. Wait until the mixture starts boiling again and for a few minutes, again for the taste to sink in.

23. Add the Baguio beans/artichokes and mix very well and wait again until the mixture boils for a little bit. Add a couple rounds of ground pepper.

24. Take the strips of bell pepper and lay them out gently on top of the paella: