World Paella Day in Conjunction with ESDS 2024 @ Next Door Spanish Cafe in Siglap Singapore 🇪🇸

Next Door Spanish Cafe | 699 East Coast Rd, S459061 ☎ 8168 4009 ⏰ 5pm - 11pm (opens at 12 noon on Fri, Sat & Sun)

20th September is the annual World Paella Day and we are celebrating this global event in conjunction with the month long Eat Spain Drink Spain 2024 festivities from 15 Sep to 15 Oct in Singapore. Today, we celebrated paella at Next Door Spanish Cafe in Siglap, Singapore.

Paella is one of my favourite rice dishes and I am excited to see how it is prepared from scratch by chef Houssein Hafian Rodriguez of Next Door Spanish Cafe.

When the huge flat iron pan was hot enough, chef slathered in and spread the olive oil, spice paste, and aromatics such as garlic, shallots, etc to make the sofrito (the flavour base of the dish).

When the spices and aromatics sizzle, squeeze in generous dashes of saffron water.

When the sautéed sofrito is ready, pour in the rice. This looked so fun.

Mix the rice and spice-aromatics blend (sofrito) and spread it evenly across the pan.

Pour in seafood broth. Smelling the crustacean umami already made me feel hungry.

Let the rice grains simmer, luxuriate in the umami bath, infusing the rich seafood flavours into the core of its ~~soul~~ fibre.

Sprinkle in dashes of salt.

Here come the prawns.

Shelled, deveined, succulent, fresh.

Let the prawns and rice slowly simmer, reducing the broth.

Chef Houssien hails from Malaga, on Spain's southwestern shoreline just 130km east of Gibraltar.

Paella has many regional variations (which can include clams, fish, squid, chicken, duck, rabbit, vegetables, etc). The Malaga paella is semi-wet, saucey and neither soupy nor dry.

Paella is one of Spain's national dishes, so they don't say it is el dente like the Italians but en punto.

Spot on paella feels moist, creamy in the mouth, its soft tender nutty short grains (which have little starch) infused and enveloped with rich crustacean umami. It's like umami soaked wet puffed rice but denser.

There are also chewy crusts which add crunch to the soft nutty textures of the dish. Known as socarrat in Spanish, make sure you get these sought after crunchies in your plate 😄

Wiki Commons photo

Paella was born in the rice fields of Valencia in Spain's southeastern coast. Rice farmers working the fields would gather, light a fire, lay a large flat pan over it and cook rice with broth. In the pan with rice, farmers would throw whatever was at hand, beans, vegetables, rabbit, chicken, etc.

The farmers would gather around the large round pan while its contents slowly simmer over the open wood fire. They would chat about anything and everything, bonding over the pan of aromatic simmering rice, meat and vegetables. When the paella is ready, they would eat straight from the pan like a big round table (similar to how Chinese gather around round tables for family meals).

From Valencia, paella travelled across Spain, and then the world, picking up more ingredients everywhere it went. Paella is a very versatile, inclusive dish. Diversity of ingredients is welcome as long as it is in harmony with the other ingredients.

In all its different renditions across the globe, one thing stays at the core of the paella.

Paella was born as a communal, party dish. The Valencians who created the dish say paella is not just a dish but a social institution. It is a symphony (of flavours) in the pan and, harmony and unity among people at the table.

Roasted chili pepper is perfect with umami savoury paella.

Every Spanish meal must end sweetly with churros in my humble opinion 😁

Of course, they have sangria at Next Door Spanish Cafe.

They also have Estrella Galicia on tap 🍻

Full house at Next Door Spanish Cafe for World Paella Day. Eat Spain Drink Spain 2024 is exciting palates - on now till 15 Oct 2024. Scan the QR code to view the complete list of activities and join the ESDS WhatsApp group for news and live updates.