Grilled Paella with Shellfish, Chorizo and Chicken (Paella Mixta)

I talked tough about taking it easy on vacation, didn't I? Sometimes my cooking ambitions get away from me. My big production meal while I was at the cottage was paella on the grill.
*Paella on the grill is a great recipe for a crowd, but I forgot how much dicing is involved.  It is a bit of work when you've been throwing the kids into Lake Erie all day.
**But I made my Mom happy.  Isn't that what really matters?

I have modified my technique since I last posted about paella on the grill. I read an article by Sarah Jay in Fine Cooking magazine about paella, where she explains the cardinal sin of paella cooking: having too much rice in the pan. Sarah says you want just enough rice to cover the pan. This makes sure the rice cooks evenly, and gives a higher proportion of browned soccarat rice on the bottom. According to the article, my old 13 inch paella pan was too small for the 3 cups of rice I usually cook, so I traded up to a 16 inch pan from PaellaPans.com. I love it, but I still want to go larger - my kettle is 22.5 inches wide, so I can fit a 22 inch pan in there.
*Bigger is better, right?
**Yes, gadget lust is an ugly thing. But...anyone out there have a large paella pan in their Weber kettle? How big of a pan will fit before you catch the handles on the grill grate? Let me know in the comments.


Sarah is right about the rice proportions, too - the rice was tastier cooked in the larger pan. The shellfish added their brine into the rice, the chorizo gave it a spicy, meaty flavor, and the grill added a hint of smoke. It was a lot of work...but it was worth it to sit down with a glass of Spanish Cava, relax for a minute, then dig in.

Recipe: Grilled Paella with Shellfish, Chorizo and Chicken (Paella Mixta)
Adapted From: Sarah Jay, Classic Seafood Paella, Fine Cooking Magazine

Equipment:

• Grill, preferably charcoal (My favorite is the Weber Kettle).
  
• Large Paella pan (I use a 16" pan, available here. If you're using a 13" to 14" pan, cut back a bit on the rice and water - say 2 cups rice and 4 cups water.)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 8 oz chorizo sausage (Cooked, Spanish style, if you can find it.)
• 1 lb chicken breast tenders
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 of a large red onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 6 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
• 2 tsp Smoked Spanish Paprika (Pimenton de La Vera)
• 3 cups short grain rice (Valencia is authentic; Arborio is easy to find; I use CalRose from the Chinese Grocery because I always have it on hand.)
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 tsp saffron threads
• 4 cups water
• 16 oz bottled clam juice
• 1 pound 20-25 count shrimp, uncooked
• 12 little neck clams
• 24 mussels

Directions:
1. Prepare your ingredients: The key to this recipe is having all your prep work done before you start cooking. Salt and pepper the chicken tenders; set aside on a plate. Dice the chorizo. Chop all the vegetables as directed; put the chorizo, onion and bell pepper in one bowl, and the garlic and paprika in another bowl. Heat the water and clam juice to a simmer; I used the microwave. Crumble the saffron threads into the water and clam juice, and let them steep while you prepare the grill. Rinse and check all the clams and mussels. (There's nothing that will ruin a dish like a bad mussel. Make sure all the shellfish are tightly closed, or close when you squeeze them. If in doubt, throw it out!)

2. Prepare the grill: Set your grill up for cooking on medium-high heat.  For my kettle grill, this means filling a Weber charcoal chimney with charcoal, lighting it, and waiting for it to be covered with white ashes. Then, I spread it over 2/3rds of the grill grate in an even, single layer of coals.

Picture borrowed from my earlier Paella post.  Hey, I was on vacation...

4. Brown the meat: Put the paella pan over the lit coals, then add 1 tbsp of the olive oil to the pan. Wait for the oil to heat up enough to start shimmering, usually about 1 minute. Add the chicken to the pan and brown it well on each side, about 2 minutes per side, then remove to a plate. While the rice is simmering in step 6, chop the chicken into 1" pieces.

5. Saute the aromatics and chorizo:Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, and let it heat up for one minute, or until it is just showing wisps of smoke.Add the chorizo, onions, and peppers to the pan and cook, stirring, until softened and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Make a hole in the center of the onions, and add the garlic and paprika. Saute for about a minute, or until you can smell the garlic, then stir into the onions.

Rice in the pan, with the first batch of water just coming to a simmer

6. Cook the rice: Add the rice and cook, stirring, until the grains are shiny, about 1 minute. Add the water/clam juice mixture until it comes to the top of the rice, sprinkle with 1 tsp salt, and cook, simmering, for 15 minutes. Add more water whenever the rice is starting to look a little dry; it will absorb most of the water during the cooking time. Rotate the pan 90 degrees every now and again to heat the pan evenly.

Seafood added to the pan

7. Cook the seafood:Add the mussels, and clams, hinge side down, nestling them into the rice to hold them upright. Scatter the shrimp and the chicken over the top. Add one more pour of the stock or water, if you have any left. Cook for another 10 minutes, rotating the pan occasionally, until the remaining water has been absorbed, the mussels and clams have opened, and the shrimp is opaque in the middle. Ideally, the rice will just start to brown on the bottom when the mussels are cooked.  (That browning is the soccarat, which is the best part of the paella.  Check for it with a wooden spoon at a couple of points in the pan.  If you need to, leave the pan on the grill for an extra couple of minutes to get the soccarat.)

Seafood cooked (except the giant clams - see notes below)

8. Serve: Taste for seasoning, and add salt and pepper as needed. You probably won't need much salt - the shellfish add salt to the dish when they give up their juices. Take the entire pan to the table, cover with a tea towel, and let the rice rest for ten minutes. Remove the towel, and serve.

Variations:
*For a more authentic paella, leave the chicken out.  In Spain, they tend to cook either a seafood paella or a meat paella.

*For this recipe, you want cured Spanish chorizo. Uncooked spanish chorizo is a good alternate choice if you can't find the cured version. Don't use Mexican style chorizo in this recipe; I'd substitute pepperoni if you can't find any Spanish chorizo.  But, really, with some searching in your local grocery's cheese aisle, you should be able to find it.  Look for the pepperoni; the chorizo is usually right next to it.

Notes:
*Make sure your grill is on a level surface when you're cooking this recipe. My grill was on a bit of an incline, and the pan, rice, and liquid kept leaning to the left. I worked around this by turning the pan until the rice started to thicken up a bit, but the water/clam juice/saffron mix would always pool on one side of the pan.

*Pimenton de La Vera is the wonderful smoked paprika from Spain; you want the distinctive, smoky taste that it gives you.  I get mine from Penzeys spices, and La Tienda or PaellaPans.com are other good sources if you can't find it locally.

*In the pictures, you can see that I used cherrystone clams. This was a mistake; they were too large, and  took too long to cook. I pulled them out of the paella and finished cooking them directly on the grill grate  while the paella was in its "resting under a tea towel" step.  If I hadn't, the mussels and shrimp would have overcooked while I waited for the clams to open.

Looking for a good source of Paella pans and ingredients?  Check out PaellaPans.com.

*FCC disclaimer: I received no compensation from PaellaPans.com for this post.  I don't get my usual Amazon kickback if you order from their site, even.  I just like their products - they have good pans, and Sarah Jay is part of the company.  Check them out!

Questions? Comments?  Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

Related Posts:
Grilled Paella with Chorizo and Chicken
Quick Gazpacho

Adapted From:
Sarah Jay, Classic Seafood Paella, Fine Cooking Magazine
(Original recipe available on FineCooking.com)

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