My neighbor and I share grilling secrets over the back fence. When I told him that I was making Paella he said "ON THE GRILL?" He has two little girls and I think he just cannot imagine taking that kind of time cooking dinner! According to our son-in-law, Paella is always cooked over a wood fire in Spain so apparently the grill is the only place to cook it! It was fantastic but it did take a long time. You want to stage all of the ingredients so cut them all up and measure them out ahead of time and have them ready as they are needed. No time for cutting and running in and out once the pan gets on the fire. I used more chorizo, tenderloin and chicken than the required by the recipe.
I didn't have a Paella pan so I used two iron skillets. They worked fine. The only problem was the fire was hard to adjust with the two skillets on the grill top. If I do it again, I will make sure that the fire is kept nice and hot so that the rice gets crispier. Rob says that in Spain you have to scrape the rice off of the pan.
The squid in this recipe was MUCH better than my first attempt. See March 14 entry. The small pieces of squid in this recipe were tender and nothing like the rubber socks from March.
The recipe calls for mussels which I purchased at Whole Foods. I either cooked them too long or they were empty shells. The mussel was hard to detect in most of the shells. But everything else was just fine - pork tenderloin, chicken thighs, chorizo sausage, etc. The pork and chicken do not get spiced other than from the chorizo. Next time, I think I will cook the meats some on the open grill before cutting them up for frying in the pan.
- Mark
