Looks good!

Nice!

YUM!

That looks great!

Rice is a pretty amazing food, isn’t it?

I wonder, if you put it on the burner for a bit, if soccarat might develop?

Looks great! I like your pan too, thanks for sharing!

Looks good!

Thank you for sharing, Pink—- it it’s nice to see your name. i’ll be interested to read the MB plan. I’ve not made paella because my former neighrbor, a Spanish neuroligist, made it so well and we enjpyed dinner in his home occasionally. Miss him and his paella.

The closest I get to soccarat is rice goo stuck to the bottom of the pan. I did think about cooking it over the stove just a bit longer, but that pan is one I use constantly, my best pan, and I didn't want to risk compromising the non-stick finish. A real cast iron enameled paella pan might be worth the risk, but I find them to be sticky, even without the enamel. I have not been able to season mine to get a good non-stick surface. Not for lack of trying either. The rice was nice and chewy but not hard, and well seasoned, not soupy and not gummy, so overall pretty good for me and rice. I struggle with the gumminess factor a lot of the time. The best ratio of water to rice often eludes me, because even the exact same kind of rice is not always the same as far as absorption. Rice is my favorite food, we eat it several times a week at the least. So again, not for want of trying . . . We even got a rice cooker but it doesn't do any better than one of my pans on the stove. Luckily we like the pressure cooking feature and make yogurt with it, so we still get good use out of it.

Yes, to achieve soccarat, you need to finish on the stovetop. I make a dish like this, as well, though it doesn't have any parboiling. I've used bomba rice or Calrose rice, which is a medium grain. I have a Le Creuset paella, but I've also used an oven-safe non-stick skillet when I don't want to make so much. The last step is to take the pan out of the oven and put it on a low burner for like 8-10 minutes. The heat regulation is done based on sound mostly with smell as a safeguard on time.

This wasn't my best soccarat, but it was okay, and it's the picture I have on this device. My burner should have been a bit cooler.

I don't have the recipe on this device ... I can add it later.

I did have it on the stove top for about ten minutes of evaporating out the excess moisture. I think I took it off just a few minutes too soon, erring on the side of caution, having burned on carbon ruin some of my other pans. The overly red color due to the excess tomato had me nervous. I do want to try it again, but I am out of the right kind of rice . . . and also am having some trouble with my credit card due to a pop up phishing scam when I went to renew my license plate . . . sigh. So no mail ordering special rice for a while until I get it sorted . . .

I get all my rice at my regular grocery store. The store I bought most of my rice from is specific to eastern Massachusetts, and I don't know what you have locally for stores, but Whole Foods usually has pretty good rice selections in terms of national stores. I think Wegmans is only in a handful states, but it also has lots of options if you have one.

There are a number of rices that can work in a pinch ... just not long grain.

Oh, and as promised ... this is my recipe ... it's not technically paella ... but it has the flavors, and it's an easy weeknight dinner.

Baked Chicken and Rice à la Paella

Ingredients:

For the Tomato Sauce*

• 1 sweet pepper, cored and chopped (optional)
• 1 shallot or shallot scapes, fine chopped
• 14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes
• butter
• salt and pepper
• herbs (rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano, sage, etc.), to taste

For the Rice

• ½ lb ground chicken
• 1 ⅓ cup medium-grain rice
• 1 ¼ cup chicken broth
• ½ cup sherry
• 1 ½ tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and julienned (optional)
• salt and pepper
• paprika
• saffron
• rosemary sprig
• basil, if desired

*If you buy crushed tomatoes with seasoning, you can use that directly in the rice for a faster version.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°.

To prepare the sauce

1. Sauté the sweet pepper and shallot/shallot scapes in butter with salt and pepper until softened.
2. Add the entire can of tomatoes, including all the liquid, bring to a simmer.
3. Add herbs to taste and simmer until it reaches the consistency of a thin sauce. It’s okay if it’s slightly under seasoned, as the rice will be seasoned, as well.
4. If desired, strain to remove seed and skins. Return pepper pieces to the sauce.

To prepare the rice

1. Heat the butter and oil in a 12” oven-proof skillet over medium heat.
2. Add ground chicken, breaking up into clumps into irregular pieces bite-sized or smaller. Season with salt and pepper and sauté until lightly browned. (If you like pieces of onion/shallot in your rice, add them during this step.)
3. Add tomato sauce and stir to coat the chicken. Cook for about a minute.
4. Add broth, wine, rosemary, basil, paprika, saffron, and sun-dried tomato; bring to a boil.
5. Add rice and season to taste.
6. Simmer to allow rice to absorb the tomato flavor; it should become thick but visibly wet.
7. Remove any whole herbs, cover with foil (or cookie sheet) and transfer to preheated oven.
8. Bake for 23-35 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked. Add in an ¼ cup water if rice is not done. (Do not stir much ... this is not risotto.)
9. Remove cover and move to stovetop. Be careful, the pan will be very hot.
10. Heat on low for 8-10 minutes to form socarrat (crispy, toasted bottom). Listen carefully: you should be able to hear the rice when the pan reaches the right temperature. Be careful not to burn the rice; if you smell char, remove from heat immediately.

Thank you for posting that recipe BBCake!! I am definitely going to try it. I am on a mission to use up the last of our 2021 canned tomatoes. All that is left is plain sauce and some salsa. I'll adapt the sauce by maybe adding a few sundried tomatoes but being more cautious than I was the last time. It just sounds super delicious!

There isn't a gourmet grocery store for 50 miles from me, so if it is anything remotely specialty I have to order it or drive. I just made an order for the short grain brown rice and red lentils. I don't know why my local Meijers doesn't carry those two products, but they don't. They have a good selection of other rices and pulses, but not yellow split peas or red lentils. I just happen to love the short grain brown rice above some of the others. I can get jasmine and arborio and a rice blend locally.

The only other grocery store is Walmart. I avoid that one if I can help it, mostly unpleasant, lack of checkout service. There was a child abduction scandal and also drug bust in the parking lot. It's very visible and right off the highway which is I guess the reason for it being attractive to criminals. I wish we had something more local but the one other grocery store we had closed in 2021. We used to have four local groceries in my small town plus some smaller neighborhood ones. Not anymore. We do have an Arab grocery and Mexican grocery though now. An interesting mix. My cooking has gotten pretty conservative. I am all about simple, quick and inexpensive. But to go healthy I have to special order most of the whole grains.

P.S. Blueberry Bundt Cake also sounds delicious!! Do you ever make it? I don't usually have enough people to help me eat up a bundt cake so I don't make them very often. It's been a while, but blueberry season is just around the corner . . . I don't have much in the way of local grocery stores to choose from, but I do have a good U-pick blueberry farm that I visit . . . I usually make blueberry muffins because I can freeze the leftovers. Jam is my other usual blueberry foray.