COUNTRY COOKING: SPAIN

Country cookin'... and I am not referring to meals that are fried up and slathered with gravy! Ben and I have made a pact to take turns cooking traditional, authentic meals from a new country every week. We watched Mind of a Chef featuring David Chang last weekend on Netflix and haven't stopped talking about it since. Pair the documentary with a rather stagnant menu for the past few weeks - and we've got ourselves an internationally interesting challenge! Can you guess what we picked for this week?

Paella is one of Spain's most traditional dishes, dating back to the early 1800's. I wanted to keep these meals as authentic as possible. No Tex-Mexing. Unfortunately, when I researched the history behind the meal I realized the meat they used was rabbit and snails. Ben shot me a sideways look of disgust and immediately vetoed the traditional meat selection the second I asked "...does Whole Foods have rabbit...?" (And no, WF does not.)

And like all recipes, I looked up about five different ways to make it and blended it into a unique recipe. Here is the basic recipe I started with: http://www.tienda.com/recipes/paellavalenciana.html

Brooke's Alterations:

•  - the  peas (Ben would just pick around them - my super handsome and smart man child)
•  +1 red bell pepper, thrown in with the sautee
• +2 hot red peppers, sauteed in and topped
• + juice from 1 large lemon - I squeezed it over the pan right before it went into the oven
• +1 can of diced tomatoes - I put this in when the recipe says to pour in the chicken stock
• I used basmati rice (because we bought a 25lb bag from Costco and will be eating basmati forever)
• Instead of jamon/ham, I used prosciutto
• I used chicken drumsticks instead of whole chickens (on sale at WF)
• I also did not use seafood, traditional paella is made of "game-y" type meat, so I kept with the chicken, chorizo, and prosciutto
• I used a hommeade chicken stock instead of boullin
• I used about 3x more garlic
• I used salt/pepper/paprika/red pepper flakes based on taste

This was our first time eating paella, and it instantly won over my heart and stomach. Incredible spice palette, super fresh ingredients, and clean eating. It would also be a FANTASTIC dinner party meal - easy to prep ahead of time and certainly a meal worth talking about. 

Enjoy!