Seasonal notes
As spring draws to a close and summer begins, I thought I should include a seasonal recipe. Spring mushrooms are coming to an end and we’ve already had the best of the beans and peas. We should be getting ready for oily fish and summer fruits, such as ‘Sant Joan’ European pears, cherries and loquats.
So in this first newsletter, I thought I should include a recipe from the still unpublished Recipe book of my mother, Carme Parellada. And what better recipe than that of ‘Paella Parellada’, which was written down by my mother in handwriting learned from the nuns of the Jesus Maria College almost 80 years ago.
“Lightly fry chopped onion and tomato in oil. Add unshelled seafood, boneless, skinless chicken cut into small pieces, small pieces of blood sausage and pork tenderloin. Then add fish or beef stock, or half and half. Add the rice and finely chopped saffron, garlic and parsley and, if you wish, vegetables. Season with salt, and you can also add finely chopped pepper. Put the rice in the oven at a low temperature for the last five minutes. If you don’t have an oven, cover the rice and cook it more slowly.”
This recipe of my mother’s is for Paella Parellada, which was served at Restaurant Set Portes in the 1950s and 1960s, so it was also chef Martí’s recipe. You can find chef Lladonosa’s recipe for the same dish. The two recipes differ in the procedure. It is important to remember, especially for those of you who are not used to cooking paellas, that the fried onion and tomato and the stock are more important than the other ingredients. More on this another day. See recipe.
