It's always fun having a front seat at the effervescent show that is José Andrés. Especially when the 6-restaurant owning Spanish chef demonstrates making paella at his Bethesda house. On a barbecue grill. His goal? To make Americans break out into more than hamburgers and hot dogs with their charcoal. He's not against those US classics. But he'd like to encourage us to think outside the al fresco cooking box. "Everytime you go to a cook-out, what do you get? Hamburgers and hot dogs." And paella, according to the award-winning chef, benefits just as much from the wood chip smoke aroma.

He's set up three kettle grills filled to blazing point with impressively generous mounds of blazing charcoal to compensate from the aggressive humidity. Of course Andrés would like it if you make your own charcoal from the sticks in your backyard. But it's okay if you just slope off to the Giant for supplies. He himself had bundles of vine clippings to toss onto the inferno for flavor.

Andrés doesn't just want to increase our barbecuing repetoire. He wants us to drop our understanding of what a true paella is. Or what, more precisely, it isn't. It doesn't have to be flavored with saffron - for me a musty flavoring that makes everything taste like it's been cooked in the winter fabrics department of an ancient mildewed store. And it doesn't have to include traffic light colors. Chunks of yellow pepper? Out. Ditto red and green capsicums. This, Andrés emphasizes, is a dish about rice, not about a disproportionate quantity of additions, from chorizo and chicken, to shrimp, peas, and peppers. And you don't have to have conniptions about exact quantities of rice to protein and vegetables. Keep it simple. This is rustic food.

In one 15-inch paella pan, Quim Marques, a chef over from Spain, browned some chunks of bone-in chicken thigh. Next he poured in a quantity of mineral water, tilting the pan over the edge of the grill to flood the chicken pieces with liquid. Once the chicken had released its flavor into a rich stock, he added the short-grain calasparra rice. Just before the cooking ended, he added chopped garlic, some beans, chanterelle mushrooms, cauliflower florets and pattipan squash from a selection of dishes behind him.

Here's  José Andrés' recipe for Paella de pollo y verduras a la brasa - Chicken and vegetable paella on the grill:

1/4 cup Spanish olive oil
3 cups diced seasonal vegetables such as green beans, zucchini, baby squash, cauliflower
1 cup seasonal mushrooms
2 pounds organic chicken legs and thighs, cut up
1 tbs chopped fresh garlic
1 cup grated fresh tomato
pinch of saffron
4 cups mineral water
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tsp pimenton (Spanish smoked paprika)
1 cup Spanish bomba or calasparra rice

Lay a 15-inch pan on a charcoal filled with very hot and evenly spread coals. (Andrés' key cooking tip? If you don't make a good fire, you won't make good paella.)

Add the olive oil to the pan. Once hot, sear the vegetables until they get a nice brown color. Remove vegetables from the pan and reserve. Add the chicken in small batches to the pan and sear until skin is golden and crisp. Remove the chicken and reserve. Add the chopped garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the grated tomato and cook for 1 minut making sure to scrape up all the browned bits from the chicken. Pour in the wine and let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes.

Check the heat and, if necessary,remove the paella pan fromthe grill and add more coals to increase the heat. Return the vegetables and chicken to the pan and pour in the mineral water. Allow the mixture to boil for 2 minutes to flavor the water. Then stir in the rice. Season to taste with salt and boil for 10 minutes. Do not stir the rice again, as this can cause the rice to cook unevenly. The intense charcoal heat will create a crust or socorrat. (Don't worry! You haven't ruined the paella. For many the socorrat is the best part of the paella.)

Remove the paella pan from the grill and check the coals again. Spread them out to reduce the heat. Return the pan to the grill. Crumble the saffron across the top of the paella and sprinkle the pimenton evenly. Do not stir the rice. Cook for another 5minutes. Remove the paella from the heat, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let the paella rest for 5 minutes beore serving.

In a different method, José cooked the thick tomato and garlic sauce called salmorra into oil before adding chicken pieces, raw shrimp and then the rice, turning it and turning it to absorb the other flavors before adding mineral water. Saffron went into a final paella of lobster and squid cooked in a massive pan the size of a side table.This was a trickier process, needing repeated fanning of the coals to keep the heat high enough to get the stock at a continuous boil. See what it did to José's own temperature...Nothing gets in the way of something he believes in, certainly not his own comfort.

And although there was white wine to drink, what did José pick? The finest gin-and-tonic I've ever had, made with Hendrinck's gin, Fever Tree tonic in a tiny glass bottle, some crushed juniper berries, a smashed mint leaf and the largest single ice cube I've ever seen.

At 3 inches square, it chilled the drink without diluting it with melting water. I found the rubber trays on Cheftools.

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2 Comments

1. wanda rodriguez

   love your show but cant find it in east stroudsburg,pa

2. Ingrid Talavera

   I rally love your show so much plus it so easy for us to follow your way of cooking and inspired me so much to cook and let my family taste it... But we cant find your show here in the Philippines and even in the computer it so hard for us to play your videos most of the time cannot be browse... :(
   
   But more power and more menus to share for us viewers who loved your show so much...