Next week, Martha Stewart will release her 100th cookbook. with title Martha: The CookbookThis is a fascinating personal summary of Stewart’s 100 favorite recipes; I couldn’t help but notice that about five percent of them required caviar. But I want to talk about the paella recipe. I was particularly intrigued because, while it’s always been a dish of golden rice and delicious add-ins, Martha’s recipe goes full-bodied with chicken, two types of pork, three types of shellfish, and even a cephalopod. She coolly writes that this is the dish she would serve at her birthday party if she were celebrating at her home, Skylands, in Maine, noting that it always gets compliments from her friends.

The first thing that struck me about the recipe is that it serves 12 people and you need an 18 to 22 inch paella pan and a wood griddle to cook it. I don’t even have a paella pan, let alone an 18 or 22 inch one. I also can’t think of 12 friends I love enough to spend my entire weekly grocery budget on cooking a single meal. So when I decided to adapt the recipe, I halved it to fit my largest pot, the 12-inch All-Clad (as it turned out, however). Since I don’t have a wood grill, I did all my testing on my gas stove.

Martha’s recipe’s 21-ingredient ingredient list starts with 12 chicken thighs, which you marinate in sweet paprika for four hours or more. After searing the thighs and boiling them in a very crowded pan, I noticed that the chicken in the finished dish was still undercooked off the bone. So when I rearranged the recipe, I used the chicken thighs on the smaller side and roasted them longer. And as you’ll see, I’m reminded to use an instant-read thermometer before serving to make sure the meat is cooked.

Next, Martha’s recipe has you spend a ton of time blanching and chopping the tomatoes, a French technique called concasse. But also just grate the tomatoes Use canned tomatoes if fresh ones are out of season, as the Spanish do, because they are tastier.

After this, Martha tells you to go crazy with one of the most expensive spices in the world: You grind 2 teaspoons of saffron in a mortar and pestle with salt. All other paella recipes ask you to crumble the saffron, not powder it. And more importantly, 2 teaspoons (1 gram) of saffron is a ton for even 12 people. When I used the amount called for in the recipe, the saffron was so strong that it caused the rice to have a slightly metallic taste.

I consulted with Alex Wilkens, vice president of product. Spice Housefor health check of bile. He was with me in his “less is more” approach. “High-quality saffron can easily top off a dish,” Wilkens told me. “Excellent quality saffron will produce that vibrant golden color and distinct floral scent even in very small quantities.” Since it’s difficult to fit saffron strands neatly into a teaspoon, Wilkens recommends measuring in pinches rather than teaspoons. “We recommend using no more than 2 small pinches of saffron for a meal for 12 people,” he said.

Martha dilutes the saffron with chicken broth (homemade, natch) and ⅓ cup cognac. I don’t know where the idea came from to mix fine French brandy into a Spanish dish, but it didn’t add anything to the dish. Surprisingly, Martha also notes in the sidebar note “flamed quality brandy or Armagnac at end of cooking!” but the recipe does not include instructions for this. I like not to burn my eyebrows when I’m having fun, so I skipped the fireworks.

Moving on, Martha wants two types of pork in addition to the chicken: tenderloin and fresh Spanish chorizo. The tenderloin was overcooked and added nothing but cost to the already crowded pan, so I nixed it on subsequent attempts. As for “fresh Spanish sausage (not dried), sliced” I have no idea what he is talking about because Spanish sausage is usually dried. There is soft Mexican sausage, but it is soft and cannot be sliced. After hunting at four different stores, including the Spanish specialty market, I gave up. In my adapted recipe, I opt for the easier-to-find Spanish dried chorizo ​​sausage, which cooks up chewy little garlicky nubbins that add a nice smoky note to the rice.

When talking about rice, Martha calls for “Short grain rice like bomb.” Bomba rice is a special type of imported short-grain rice traditionally used for paella, which is said to retain a lot of liquid and is therefore more flavorful. Also $23 per 35-ounce bag. I used a cloth bag of plain old “paella rice” from the Spanish company Matiz, which cost less than half that price, and had a fantastic result – no need to go into the really expensive stuff unless you’re serving Spanish friends who will be making it. Note the difference I guess.

After adding the broth, Martha says to keep stirring the rice. However according to famous Spanish chef José Andrés and for many others, it is very wrong to mix paella at this point. When you do this, you will disturb the socarrat, the crispy, caramelized rice that forms at the bottom of the pan. For many paella lovers, socarrat is the best part of paella; The textural difference between moist rice chunks and crispy rice chunks is a part of paella, like all fancy scrambles.

Let’s move on to seafood. Martha instructs you to add shrimp and a large amount (1¼ pounds) of raw calamari at the very beginning of the cooking process, while you add the tomatoes and broth. Wouldn’t boiling squid and shrimp for a total of 35 minutes turn them into rubber? Days later, while I’m still chewing a forkful of that calamari, I’ll go ahead and nod in agreement. So in the adapted version of the recipe I gave up squid completely – it’s hard to find, plus I personally don’t like squid that much. I add the shrimp later along with the shellfish to prevent the poor things from turning into dust.

Martha’s recipe says to boil the meat, shrimp, rice, and squid over high heat for 15 minutes, then add the clams and mussels and cook “until the shellfish shells have opened and almost all of the liquid in the pan has evaporated.” “About 20 minutes.” I was confused as my shellfish started blooming almost immediately and it only took 8 minutes for them all to fully bloom. I wasn’t sure if the 20 minutes was in addition to the previous 15 minutes or if the total simmer time was 20 minutes. Some light editing would have made this passage much clearer.

In the end, Martha’s recipe gave me a very expensive, very yellow, very crowded rice pan with some undercooked ingredients in it and some already cooked. The top of the rice was perfect, but the bottom of the pan was the much awaited soccarat. It was darkened, not exactly what I was looking for. I made some notes in my adapted recipe below, including one to lower the heat slightly and another to stop stirring once the broth is added. One more thing I would add is to take everything Martha says with a grain of salt. The woman clearly lives in her own reality.

Paella Recipe

Loosely adapted Martha: The Cookbook

for 6 people

Contents:

4 cups Aneto seafood paella broth or chicken broth, divided
1 pinch of saffron
4 small (4-ounce) bone-in, skin-on chicken legs
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 red bell pepper, cut into ¼-inch strips
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
¾ cup grated fresh tomatoes or canned diced tomatoes without juice
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic (about 3 cloves)
1½ cups uncooked paella rice
6 ounces Spanish cured chorizo, sliced
6 to 8 small mussels, rinsed well and beards removed (discard open mussels that have cracked shells or do not close when squeezed)
8 to 12 Manila clams, rinsed (discard any with cracked shells)
½ pound large (21/25) shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup finely chopped Italian parsley
lemon slices

Instructions:

Step 1: Heat 1 cup of broth in the microwave until steam comes out. Crumble the saffron into the broth and set aside.

Step 2: Season the chicken on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a 12- to 14-inch skillet with sides at least 2 inches high over medium-high heat. Add the chicken to the skillet, skin side down, and cook until golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Turn with tongs and cook for 5 minutes until the second side is well browned. Transfer the chicken to a plate and set aside.

Step 3: Add the onions and bell peppers to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 1 minute.

Step 4: Add the rice to the pan and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the broth-saffron mixture and 2 more cups of broth. Place the chicken (skin side up) and chorizo ​​into the rice. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer (medium heat) and cook, without stirring, for 15 minutes, until small holes form in the rice and most of the broth has been absorbed. Turn the pan over the heat occasionally so that the rice cooks evenly on all sides.

Step 5: Add the shrimp to the pan and gently push them into the rice. Do the same for mussels and clams, making sure their hinge ends are down. Continue simmering, uncovered, adding some of the remaining broth to any areas that appear dry; You may not need all the remaining broth. Cook until shrimp curl and turn opaque, shellfish has opened, and chicken registers 170 degrees when tested with an instant-read thermometer. This will take approximately 8 to 10 minutes. Taste the rice; It should be soft with some chew, but not chalky. Discard any unopened shellfish.

Step 6: Increase the heat to medium-high and cook until you hear a slight crackling sound from the bottom of the pan, 1 to 3 minutes; This is a sign that the rice is crispy at the bottom of the pan. Remove the paella from the stove and let it sit for 5 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with lemon wedges to five of your favorite friends.

Ivy Manning Based in Portland, Oregon, she is an award-winning food writer and author of 10 cookbooks. Tacos A to Z: A Delicious Guide to Unconventional Tacos. In addition to Eater, she serves as a regular recipe tester and editor for restaurants and home appliance brands.
Dina Avila A photographer based in Portland, Oregon.