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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Ms. Casas' oven technique yields poor paella!
Although there are many varieties of paella with regional ingredients there is one indispensable ingredient; short grain Spanish rice. The best part of paella is without any question the "socarrat" which is the toasty caramelized layer of rice which sticks to the bottom of the paella pan when the dish is properly prepared on top of the stove or better yet, the grill. One can not make proper paella in an oven, convection or otherwise. The rice will be a soupy mess or dried out but never yield the desireable crunchy "socarrat".
"Paella Paella" is a far superior book although a great recipe for learning the technique of paella preparation can be found at the Fine Cooking magazine website. After you make that once then you may use whatever ingredients you wish to combine to make fantastic paella. Be creative.
Is it worth the trouble to find the proper pan, Spanish rice, saffron and olive oil? Absolutely! "Socarrat" Rules!
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This is not an authentic colection of recipes
As a professional my self I do not advice to buy this book, the reason is simple: People who are involved in mixed paellas (meats & seafood) do not understand the true soul of this dish. Ask anyone in Valencia what he thinks about mixing shrimp with meats, Its a herecy! I recomend you buy the book "100 Paellas & 1 Fidehuá, this is the closest you will be to the real thing but is in Spanish only. THE MIXED PAELLA WAS CREATED DURING THE TURIST BOOM OF THE MID XX CENTURY IN SPAIN AND IS A PRODUCT FOR IGNORANT TURISTS, no Paella made by a Valencian or any old school coock will have both seafood and meats. GUILLERMO OLAIZ III
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Ole`
What a sumptous, mouth-watering book!! I have been on an endless search for the perfect Paella for years. Several places have come close but none were as good as some made from the recipes in this book. Half the fun of eating Paella is in the making of it....what ingredients to use, how to cook them, mixing all the various components, selecting the proper wine (a white sangria is perfection itself).
The accompanying information is almost as good as the recipes themselves. And the best feature of these recipes is that none is out of the range of the better-than-average cook. No tedious or long steps, no stuffing of chicken legs or boning of tiny quail - just grilling, cutting, and cooking. I prefer a Grilled Paella - or at least grilling the individual components. One must remember at all times though - Paella is, above all else, a RICE dish. That is the essence of a good Paella, the semi-crunchy red, saffron enfused grain.
To those who had trouble with the temperature or cooking time I would suggest adjusting their time/temp for their own applicances. I have both a convection oven and microwave and know that most times are reduced by a third.
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Penelope Casas is good, but she is not at her best here
I have two of her books, this one and the Tapas book. The Tapas book is really great. The paella book is really a bit too much. I mean, how many kinds of paella can you really eat? This is probably my own fault for buying the book- I should have figured that an entire book of paella would be overkill. But a friend of mine, whose culinary tastes I respect, suggested it, so I bought it site unseen. If you are an afficionado of paella, by all means you should get this book, but for me it's not worth it. I really like paella, but I dont' make it once a week or anything like that. I make pizza once a week, and frankly even then the "Chez Pannise" pizza cookbook I have is far too much for me. Who needs a recipe for venison, duck sausage and baby octopus paella, for crying out loud? Some do, most don't. Now, Casas' "Tapas" book is a MUST have- she's a tapas godess. Well worth the investment. But unless you are a total rice freak and can't get enough of risotto, suchi, jambalaya and paella, each of which in umpteen gazillion different forms, you'll be spendng a couple dozen greenbacks on a book that will realistically yield about four or five recipies you are likely to make with any degree of frequency.
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Fun, good cookbook
I bought this after eating at the home of friends who used this cookbook to prepare dinner. Although paella can be labor and time intensive, I found the directions clear and easy to follow. Suggestions for desserts & drinks etc. beneficial and easy. NOTHING in the book has turned out badly. The varieties of paella described have made it possible for me to serve the dish to vegetarians, Kosher-observant Jews (!), and your basic American carnivore. A treat.
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