Paella de mariscos

I spent the last ten days of August in beautiful Georgetown, Texas. I returned to my homeland for a bit of relaxation and to celebrate my mother's birthday. To celebrate the eve of her birthday, she made a paella de mariscos, the ultimate celebratory meal. It might seem unfair that our family made my mother cook one of her birthday meals, but since visiting Valencia, Spain, my mother has become a paella master, so she graciously cooked a delicious paella to celebrate her birthday and my homecoming.

Paella is a regional Valenciana rice dish made in a special pan called a paellera.

Paella is seemingly straight forward to make: heat olive oil, cook onions and tomatoes together, add seafood, cook, then add rice, add liquid, let rice absorb liquid, and eat. Yet, as with all things, the act is always easier said than done. This post is a series of pictures of my mother making the paella along with a loose recipe. True paella can only be made in a paellera. I encourage you to try to make "paella" (or the imitation Spanish rice dish) at home; all the recipes are very similar so find one you like on the internet to follow.

The first step of paella is wash and cut your scallops and peel your shrimp and lobster (if you can afford lobster tails...).

Then add about 2 cups of shrimp peels, lobster tails, and salt and pepper to 3 cups of boiling water to make your seafood broth. Boil the shells and water for at least 30 minutes. When the broth is done, strain the seafood broth into a measuring cup and add 3 teaspoons of whatever type of "safron" you have on hand. I used the fake safron flowers you can buy in Chinatown or Indian stores, many Latins use Bijol, or you can splurge on real saffron. Saffron is what gives the rice its yellow color.

After finishing the broth, heat olive oil in the paella pan, add the onions, cook until translucent.


Add the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.


Add the shrimp first because they take longer to cook.

Then add the scallops and lobster tails.

Add the rice, then the liquid.

Fold in the rice with the seafood and use a spoon to evenly distribute the rice and seafood within the paella pan. Cook the paella on the stove for 25 minutes on high enough heat so that the liquid simmers as the rice absorbs the liquid.

In Spain a paella is actually finished on the stove top so that a crispy rice layer (raspa) forms on the bottom of the pan. However, in my family, we finish it in the oven. A safe move is to add another cup of liquid to the paella before placing it into a 350 °F oven, then cook the paella for another 20-30 minutes in the oven until the top rice is soft.

Let the paella rest for 20 minutes to allow the ingredients to meld (cuajar in Spanish).

Then dig in. This sized dish is supposed to feed 8 to 12 people. As you can see, my family of four ate like professionals and only left a bit for the next day's leftovers.