Grilled Seafood Paella

This past weekend, Jeff and celebrated our milestone birthdays. Rather than dwell on the disappointments, inconveniences, and fears caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic, Jeff and I decided to spend our time cooking together, eating delicious food, drinking wine, listening to great music, and enjoying the weather, our home, and our family. What did we make that would be that perfect celebratory dish for us? You guessed it: Grilled Seafood Paella.

Preparation is the Name of the Game

So…paella isn’t hard to make, but there are a few moving parts.  Preparation is the name of the game with this dish.

First things first: make sure you have a seasoned paellera. Simply put in English…a paella pan.  Check out my blog post on how to season your paellera here: How to Season a Paella Pan.

Once you have that done, marinate and prepare (cut up) the seafood and meats that you’ll need.

I started with tossing the shrimp in salt, pepper, oregano and sweet paprika, and set that aside so the flavors could meld.

Special Ingredients

• Valencia rice (bomba rice)
• lobster tails
• Shellfish: clams, mussels, shrimp
• Spanish chorizo
• Saffron
• Smoked spanish sweet paprika

First, I used whole, peeled tomatoes, so those needed to be hand crushed and set aside. SEcond, I also cut up the chicken, chorizo, onions, and garlic to have them on hand. Third, I took out the spices that I would need (hellloooo saffron) as well as measured out the rice. Finally, I made sure to cut up the garnish (lemons, parsley). I did this all while Jeff was outside tending to the coals.

Fire Up the Grill!

While I was doing the prep in the kitchen, Jeff fired up the grill.  One of the reasons that I wanted to make this dish over the grill is that the pan is so huge, I was convinced that my stove top burners would not be able to cook the food evenly.  I’m glad I did it outside.  I think it added to the fun.

Check out this blog post on how to set up a charcoal grill: How to Start the Coals for Charcoal Grilling

Saute the Meats

Once the grill is nice and hot, you can begin. Place your (seasoned) paella pan on the grill and add a bit of oil.  Then start adding the meats to brown them up, starting first with the chorizo.

You can see how hot the grill and pan are!

Once the chorizo is lightly browned, take it off with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl covered with foil or lid.  Set aside, and then start in on the chicken, browning lightly.  When the chicken is done, put it in the same bowl with the chorizo, cover, and set aside.

Special Equipment

• Charcoal grill
• 17″ paella pan
• Tongs
• Slotted spoon

Prepare the Sofrito

Once the chorizo and chicken are sauteed and set aside, you can start in the sofrito. The sofrito is the onions, garlic, tomato and olive oil sauce you are preparing as the base for the paella. Start with sauteing the onions. If the pan needs a bit of olive oil, go ahead and add it.

Let’s take a brief moment to check out that beautifully seasoned paella pan!

When the onions are caramelized a bit (a few minutes sauteing over the hot coals will do the trick), add the garlic and toss around.

Garlic cooks (and burns) faster than onions, so don’t coddle the garlic too much. Burn garlic = bitter taste.

After about a minute or so, add the crushed tomatoes.

A word on the tomatoes…I used quite a bit…a whole 28 oz can. I like a strong tomato taste. The extra tomato makes my paella look more orangey than the sunny yellow of more traditional paellas. This might be an area where you might want to hold off on this amount, maybe half that amount, in order to let the main flavor profile—the saffron—shine through a little more.

Speaking of which, add that saffron now, along with a dash of the sweet paprika. Stir to combine.

Rice Ready

Once the sofrito is combined and has a chance to meld a bit, you can add the rice.

The best type to use is Valencian rice (also called “bomba” rice) because it quickly absorbs the broth.  You can find it at well stocked, higher-end grocery stores. For my paella, I used bomba rice, but if you don’t have it, you can easily substitute the cheaper—but no less worthy—Arborio rice (risotto rice) or Calrose rice (regular short-grained white rice.)

After you’ve added the rice, add the chopped roasted bell peppers, the chicken stock and a bit of salt.

Mix together, then add the chorizo and the chicken. Mix together again and then cover for about 10 minutes.

When the Grilled Seafood Paella still looks wet, but you can start to see the rice, you’re ready to add the seafood.

Seafood Aficionados Start Here

Start by adding the lobster first.  Then add the shrimp, nestling into the rice as you go. Next add the mussels and clams.  Be careful on the placement.  I found that the mussels opened up nicely, but I had nestled the clams too far into the rice, so they didn’t open up as easily.

I love seafood, so I added as much as I could fit in the Grilled Seafood Paella.

***We now interrupt our programming to let Mr. Super Cute Puggy bebop on by. ***

Turning our attention back to the paella…

Notice that simply by laying them in the rice that they shellfish already are starting to cook. The lobster is starting to turn that fantastic deep orange-red, and the shrimp are already turning pink.

At this point, cover the Grilled Seafood Paella and cook for about 5 to 10 minutes more.

After 10 minutes, the lobster and shrimp are cooked, and the shellfish have opened up.

You’re not done yet!

Now’s the time to garnish. Add the peas, slices of roasted bell pepper, and parsley, placing them where you want. Also add the lemon wedges.

Cover for a few minutes more until the lobster is completely red and there are no signs of brown.

Ole!

This dish can serve six adults easily. Make sure you really enjoy each other’s company, cause the shellfish and the lobster may require you to roll up your sleeves and eat with your hands unless you have some way to divide the lobster meat up for serving separately.

Paella is actually a rustic dish that you throw together. If you’re a newbie cook trying this…just have fun. If you enjoy wine and aren’t sure which to have, just go with the wine you like best. I drink red wines, and although I would have liked to serve something lighter, all I had on hand was a rich cab. You know what? It was still fantastic. The richness of the chicken and the spiciness of the spanish chorizo held up well. Whatever you do, enjoy yourself and have fun with it.

The first time I had paella was when I lived in San Francisco and Jeff and I would go to our favorite brewery, Thirsty Bear. (It’s still there!) Over the years, we’ve had it a few other times, mostly around our birthdays. Global pandemic be damned…we found a special way to enjoy our birthday together anyway and I’m so thankful. There’s no one else I’d want to spend this day with.

One last thing…one of the hallmarks of a good Grilled Seafood Paella is the crispy, caramelized crust that the pan makes at the bottom of the paella, called the socarrat. You get this if you’ve seasoned your pan properly and have watched the process to make sure the pan was evenly heated. I’m relieved to say that my work paid off, and that my paella had a delicious socarrat. During the cooking process, you can sometimes hear the paella crackling as the socarrat is being formed. I didn’t hear that, but I got that crust anyway. The following photos shows some of the toasty bits of socarrat.

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Grilled Seafood Paella

This seafood paella leans into lobster, shrimp, mussels, and clams. It is loaded with a tomatoey flavor and scented with saffron.

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 6

Equipment

• 17-inch paella pan
• Grill (either charcoal or propane)

Ingredients

Meats

• 1 lb large shrimp (at least 16), peeled and deveined
• 2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika (pimenton dulce) divided
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into 1 inch pieces
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1-2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil as needed
• 11 ounces Spanish chorizo cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds

Sofrito

• 1 medium yellow onion diced into small pieces
• 4 medium garlic cloves minced
• 2 large pinches saffron threads
• 28 ounces canned crushed tomatoes
• 2 cups paella rice (about 1 pound) sometimes labelled as bomba or Valencia
• 1 quart low-sodium chicken stock
• 1/4 cup roasted red peppers diced, with additional slices for garnish)
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Paella "topper"

• 20 mussels, manila clams or a combination of both scrubbed
• 4 lobster tails
• 2 cups peas if frozen, thawed
• 2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley leaves coarsely chopped
• 2 medium lemons cut into wedges

Instructions

Marinate Meats

• Place the shrimp in a medium bowl. Add one teaspoon of paprika, oregano, and salt and pepper. Toss to combine and refrigerate.
• Place the chicken in a medium bowl and season generously with salt and pepper; set aside.

Prep Grill

• Heat an outdoor grill to high (about 450°F to 550°F).

Saute the Meat

• Place a 17-inch paella pan on the grill, cover, and heat until hot, about 2 minutes.
• Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the chorizo to the pan, close the grill, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is starting to brown and the fat is rendered, about 2 to 3 minutes. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer the chorizo to a large bowl; set aside.
• There should be a thin layer of rendered fat in the pan. If there’s not enough, add another tablespoon of olive oil.
• Add the seasoned chicken to the pan in a single layer, close the grill, and sear, stirring occasionally, until both sides of the chicken pieces are golden brown, about 6 minutes total. (You will need to rotate the pan occasionally on the grill to evenly distribute the heat.) Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to the bowl with the chorizo; set aside.

Make the Sofrito

• Add the onion to the pan, season with salt and pepper, close the grill, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes, adjusting the heat as needed on a gas grill or moving the paella pan to a cooler part of a charcoal grill so that the onions don’t burn.
• Add the garlic, the other teaspoon of paprika, and saffron, stir to combine, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
• Add the canned tomato and cook until the mixture has slightly darkened in color, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan, about 3 minutes.

Add Rice and Meats

• Add the rice and measured salt and stir to coat in the tomato mixture.
• Add the broth and peppers, and stir to combine. Arrange the rice mixture in an even layer.
• Distribute the reserved chorizo and chicken over the rice, adding any accumulated juices from the bowl. (Do not stir the rice from this point on.)
• Close the grill and bring the mixture to a lively simmer. Continue to simmer, checking occasionally, until the rice grains have swelled, most of the liquid has been absorbed, and the rice begins to make a crackling sound, about 12 minutes. (Make sure to rotate the pan occasionally to evenly distribute the heat, and adjust the heat as needed to maintain a lively simmer.)

Add Shellfish

• When rice has absorbed some liquid, but is still very wet, arrange the shrimp and shellfish (hinge-side down) in the rice, nestling them slightly. Close the grill and cook until the shellfish have opened, the shrimp are just cooked through, and the rice is tender but still al dente, about 10 to 12 minutes.
• Remove the pan from the grill, cover with foil, and let stand for 5 minutes.
• Before serving the paella, discard any unopened shellfish, garnish with additional roasted bell pepper slices, peas and parsley.
• Serve with the lemon wedges.

Notes

I tend to use colossal-sized shrimp.

If you can't find paella rice, you can substitute arborio rice.

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