Why?
Well paella is said to come from Valencia so I figured why not buy one of the shallow round pans from its alleged home.
Fast forward to a few days ago while I was cleaning my kitchen and while dusting the never used pan hanging on the wall declared that I would make it soon.
Having no experience making the stuff, and still not even convinced that I like it, I did what anyone would do- pulled the recipe that came with the pan and recruited a friend.
Piezes, "property fried", inmediately. I mean HONESTLY, what could possibly go wrong with 2 Americans trying to make this stuff?
Granted, living overseas nothing is as simple as home. A trek to the local grocery store was in call for as the commissary doesn't carry rabbit, or mountain snails. (I know, right?) Feeling completely out of place as I hit the store filled with the vacationing Spanish doing shopping for their dinners at 8pm, I navigated the aisles similarly to a drive in Italy crossing between lanes, zig-zagging, and narrowly escaping collisions with carts. The man being the carne case reassured me that I wasn't crazy when my request of conejo y pollo was met with "paella?"
As for the dozen of mountain snails? Well, I translated that prior to departure. I knew I was in trouble when Google Translate asked if I meant "mountain soil." Um. No...come to think of it let's just hold the caracoles this time around.
With a recipe like the one we had, I'm happy I had an assistant and a bottle of wine. Despite all the dissections that I've done in my prior life that poor half of a bunny with head still attached nearly made me give up the effort and go grab pizza...
But I'm in Spain.
And I may have promised a friend on duty I'd take him dinner.
And I own an unused pallera!
Translating the poorly translated instructions, we made it through the steps until "recipient" became so distracting of the word I couldn't take it any longer. Making sure there was plenty of water in the pan I became a tad skeptical if we would need to go grab pizza, but we let it boil as we trip planned.
Plus, we had a Spanish supervising our efforts so how tough could this be? He even scored some of the innards of the rabbit...which he opted to share with the street kitties.
And waited.
And then waited some more.
FINALLY the soupy mixture began to resemble the paella served in town. Well not really. The local variety is really orange, almost red with primarily seafood peaking out of the arroz. Ours? Lots of green stuff- green beans and lima beans mixed in with the chunks of meat, some still on bone with a realistic yellow color of rice.
The verdict? Other than a pinch of salt and funny looking habas it was yummy! Not quite the yum factor of the street vendor in Valencia that I sampled, but better than what was served at a cafe on the same trip. The pan was gobbled up. Olé even sampled the few stray pieces of rice from the table after meal- it was a hit! So much so that now I believe Bar Nico will be hosting a monthly noche de paella that will rotate regional recipes. Of course I should probably look for a local cooking class that can teach me some of the variations for but now? We did good and I just may be brave enough to buy another rabbit in the near future.
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