I'm just mad about saffron...

Yes, I just used a tangentially related song lyric as a post title, again.

Saturday night some friends came over for dinner - E, her boyfriend J, and Slim, a new first-year in my group. As he's the baby in his family and this is the first year he's lived on his own with a kitchen, he can't really cook, but he is a B.A. chopper. He can chop just about anything we give him. Many thanks to him for tirelessly chopping the many, many chopped items that went into Saturday night's dinner. But before I continue, I need to backtrack first. To January. Sorry.

The trip before last to StL, I found saffron in my grandfather's kitchen...and since saffron is so expensive, I brought it back to Tucson. Now before you tell me I'm a terrible granddaughter, I'd like to point out that my grandfather can't cook anything besides pasta, steamed vegetables, baked potatoes, and grilled meat. While she was alive my grandmother did nearly all the cooking, but she's not here to use her kitchen anymore, so Grandpa has always invited me to take anything I could use in terms of dishes, gadgets, baking stuff etc. I just assume that this extends to less-than-common spices as well.

Possession of saffron obvious requires a specially made meal revolving around said saffron. I went with paella. Because it's delicious, and the fact that it's a one-pot meal so I don't have to come up with any sides is also a perk. (Not that I'm all that opposed to one food group meals.)

Any good cook knows that cooking only improves with the assistance of some beverages. Since we were making paella, sangria seemed like a logical choice.


I like the recipe I linked to a lot - but some commentary in case you're looking to make sangria. I used the cheapest cabernet I could fine, spiced rum, and added apples, because they're delicious soaked in alcohol. First comment - it's a really strong drink. E thought it was rather sweet, to the point of masking the wine (which is also probably due in part to using spiced rather than white rum), but I like sweet, and the more she drank the more she seemed to like the sweetness. :) I suspect that if it's going to have that much strong alcohol in it that it probably needs to be that sweet, so if you wanted to cut back on the sugar I'd probably also cut back on the rum. This recipe doesn't call for adding any white soda, but I added about a cup worth anyways to dilute it a touch and give it a hint of fizziness. (In the past E and I have also made a delicious white sangria. Something different. A good summer drink especially.)

So. Dinner. With sangria in hand, we started where many good recipes begin, by sauteeing peppers and onions.


We fairly closely followed the recipe given...well closely for us anyways. Recipes are just a starting point anyways right? We left out the squid and mussels. I don't like mussels, and I don't trust seafood in Tucson, especially when left to my own preparation. We added asparagus, because some of the other recipes I looked at called for it, because I was able to find good (ie skinny) asparagus, and because it's delicious. We put them in when the rice was maybe halfway done cooking. I also added nearly twice the amount of peas it called for. I like peas, and the more vegetables the better right? Here's the finished result:


Isn't it pretty? It was delicious, too. Things I might do different? Of course. I'd use more saffron. I've never used saffron before, and I'm under the impression that it's quite strong and that a lot should go a long way. Even so I probably still used more than it was meant to have ("a pinch" is so open to interpretation). And I'd use even more next time. Unless I somehow happened to have newer saffron - any spices claimed from my grandparents' house is going to be rather old and therefore not as strong. Other than that, the only thing I think I'd really be inclined to do differently next time is add more bell pepper at the beginning, and probably more meat. Even give these (minor) changes, I'd say my first big foray into Spanish cuisine was successful. :)