We have already explained what makes a paella here. If you have little or no experience with Spanish rice dishes, you should read this article (again).
Today we are cooking a vegetarian – actually vegan – paella de setas which focuses on mushrooms. So we need a mushroom stock or “fumet de setas”. This is not difficult and is fairly quickly done. But you have to take this step very seriously, because the soul of paella is the stock with which it is cooked.
We put a large pot on a medium-high heat and sauté roughly chopped onion and celery in olive oil for 3 minutes. We add peeled, crushed garlic cloves and fresh mushrooms or mushroom slices and sauté for a further 5 minutes. The mushrooms should release their liquid and become very aromatic, but deep browning is not desired.
Then we add dried mushrooms, spring onions, bay leaves and herbes de Provence and pour in cold water. We also like to season with juniper berries and star anise.
We bring this to the boil over a medium-high heat and give the water 45 minutes to extract the flavor of the ingredients. We put a lid on but leave a gap (for example, by placing a wooden spoon on the edge of the pot) so that the stock reduces. All that remains is to pass it through a fine sieve.
We need mushrooms for our paella – today a mixture of shiitake, king oyster and button mushrooms. Plus, of course, the right rice (we use arroz bomba), saffron and the stock, as well as olive oil, salt, onion and garlic, Spanish smoked paprika powder, a little tomato puree and rosemary and thyme.
Today we are supplementing this with (pre-cooked) chickpeas and pickled peppers. The chickpeas are canned and the peppers can be bought in a jar. Other ingredients would also harmonize, but you can also limit yourself completely to the mushrooms.
We heat the mushroom stock, but it should not boil. Then we add the saffron and stir once. The paella pan is set to a high heat (we: 8 out of 10) and the mushrooms, which we have cut into large pieces, are fried in plenty of olive oil. If the temperature is too low, the mushrooms only steam in their own juices instead of being fried.
After about 4 minutes, we add chopped onion and a little salt.
After the same amount of time, we stir in plenty of chopped garlic. From this point on, we need to work quickly, as garlic burns easily and becomes bitter. So we turn the temperature down a little (we: 6 out of 10), sprinkle the paprika powder into the pan…
…and deglaze with tomato puree, which we immediately mix well with all the other ingredients. At this point, we also add our chickpeas and the chopped pickled peppers.
We add the rice to the pan and mix everything thoroughly so that the rice grains are covered all over. Dry roast for 2 minutes…
…before pouring in the stock and stirring everything thoroughly again. Now we also add sprigs of rosemary and thyme to the pan and from here on, stirring is forbidden.
We put the pan back on the higher heat, the stock must simmer to cook the rice. The pan needs tob e left uncovered for 10 minutes.
Then the temperature is reduced again (we: 5 out of 10). The rice should swell and cook completely, there should be no liquid left at the end and a delicious crust should form at the bottom of the pan – called socarrat – and all this without anything burning and while stirring is not allowed. As you can see, this is a challenge.
With our setup – the rice we use, our pan and our stove – the paella is always perfect when we cover it at this point. However, this is a personal experience and we can’t spare you one thing with this dish: You have to experience it for yourself, with your own setup. As already mentioned, paella is not easy to prepare and you have to learn it over time and repetition. Aluminum foil is often used to cover the dish, but baking paper, which you place on top and press down around the edges, works much better.
After another 9 minutes, 19 minutes in total, the rice is cooked. However, the paella should not be served immediately, but allowed to cool slightly. We take it off the heat, remove the baking paper and enjoy it 6 – 8 minutes later. The hot pan keeps everything warm enough.
Enjoy.
And may the taste be with you.
Ingredients (for 4 people):
For 1.5 l mushroom stock:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 stalk of celery
2 cloves of garlic
400 g mushrooms or mushroom cuttings
2 – 3 spring onions
30 g dried shiitake and/or porcini mushrooms
1 bay leaf
2 tsp herbes de Provence (or just thyme)
2 l water
Optional:
4 juniper berries, slightly crushed
1 star anise
For the paella:
0.4 g saffron (0.1 g per person – that’s approx. 15 threads each)
8 tbsp olive oil (best quality, extra virgin)
500 g fresh mushrooms (we used 1/3 shiitake, 1/3 king oyster mushrooms and 1/3 button mushrooms)
Approx. 1 tsp salt
1 medium onion
4 cloves of garlic
4 tsp Spanish smoked paprika powder (Pimentón de la Vera)
100 g tomato puree
Optional: 100 g chickpeas (cooked) and/or pickled peppers (pimientos del piquillo)
400 g paella rice (we: Arroz Bomba)
1 sprig of rosemary
4 sprigs of thyme
