Anyone who believes you need to have a fancy kitchen full of expensive equipment to make great food should watch Perfecto Rocher cook paella at home. Because he doesn’t even have a charcoal grill, he balances the paella pan on two cinder blocks over a fire made with newspapers and lathing scraps. And it’s absolutely delicious, each kernel of rice chewy and distinct and permeated with the mixed flavors of the saffron, pimenton, rabbit, pork, artichokes and fava beans it was cooked with.
That probably shouldn’t be a surprise. Not only is Rocher the chef at Smoke.Oil.Salt., where paella is a Sunday treat, he’s also a third-generation paellero, from a mountain town in Valencia, Spain, where paella originates.
Rocher’s grandfather started the family restaurant with a stand by the highway, serving paella and other regional dishes to truck drivers stuck on the rocky, rutted road that passed through the town of Villalongo, 40 minutes outside the city of Valencia. As the business increased, he kept adding on and improving. Rocher’s father joined, and eventually, Rocher says, people started coming from as far away as Madrid to enjoy the wood-fired paella.
But when Rocher was a kid, carrying on the family cooking tradition was the furthest thing from his mind. He wanted to play in a punk rock band. So when he was 17, he left home and moved to England to pursue his musical career. He supported himself by picking up odd jobs working construction or helping out in kitchens.
“I used to go to restaurants with my backpack and my guitar and ask if I could make paella for them,” he says. “Usually they’d just kick me out, but sometimes they’d give me a job for a while. But when they asked me if I wanted to cook full time for them, I’d say, ‘No, I want to go play music.’”
That changed when Rocher took a job washing dishes at the Michelin-starred Manor House hotel near Bristol. “The chef saw me cutting one day and asked me if I wanted to work in the kitchen,” Rocher recalls. “I said yes, and my life changed.”
An impulse buy of a cheap airline ticket to San Francisco brought him to America, where he worked for Gary Danko (“He kicked me out of the kitchen five times before he finally hired me”). And then a broken heart led him to Los Angeles (“I broke up with my girlfriend and came to LA; that’s what you do when something like that happens”). He worked at several places in Los Angeles, including Little Tokyo’s Lazy Ox, where he first became known for his paella, before settling in at Smoke.Oil.Salt. earlier this year.
“An alarming percentage of the best paellas I have eaten have come from the well-seasoned steel pans of Perfecto Rocher,” praised Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold.
Rocher’s paellas — whether made in the restaurant or on the cinder blocks behind his house — may not be what you’re familiar with. They are seriously austere. Socarrat is everything, the shallow layer of chewy, deeply toasted rice, studded with bits of meat and vegetables.
Rocher’s paellas have a kind of elemental magic, even if they are a far cry from the richer, moister, overstuffed versions of paella usually offered in this country.
“People say it’s burned. Of course it’s burned. That’s what socarrat means!” he says. “That’s what true paella is. Paella is a culture, and it must be respected.”
As the fiercely bubbling liquid in the paella pan subsides, the rice, meat and vegetables become more evident, stained a dark red from the pimenton, tomatoes and saffron. The smell is amazing. Then you hear a faint sizzle and pop that grow louder as the last of the liquid cooks away, leaving frying rice.
“Hear that sound?” Rocher asks. “This is the rice telling you that it’s done. This is something amazing. My grandfather and father used to tell me that the rice will tell you when it’s ready. I thought they were crazy, but after years, I understand that they were right.”
Perfecto Rocher’s Paella Verda
1 1/2 hours. Serves 4.
6 cups chicken stock
1 large pinch saffron threads
1 1/2 lbs. rabbit, cut in 5 or 6 pieces
3/4 lb. pork baby-back or spare ribs, preferably Iberico, cut in 2-inch pieces
1/2 cup olive oil, preferably Spanish or Valencian, divided
2 cups Bomba rice, or similar medium-grain rice
1 Tbsp. pimenton dulce
3/4 cup grated fresh tomato, about 1 medium tomato
1/4 lb. shucked fava beans or Romano beans cut in 2-inch segments, or a mixture
2 artichoke hearts, cut in bite-sized pieces
Salt
2 stalks fresh rosemary
Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a medium pot. Add the saffron, rabbit and pork, and cook over low heat until the meat is tender, about 1 hour.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the rice and cook, stirring, until the outside surface of the rice becomes translucent, 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the pimenton and then immediately add the grated tomato and cook until it thickens, about 2 minutes. The rice will not be tender. Set aside. (The recipe can be prepared to this point up to a day in advance, the ingredients tightly covered and refrigerated.)
When ready to prepare the paella, start a hot fire in the grill. Remove the rabbit and pork from the stock, reserving the stock.
Set a 13- to 15-inch paella pan in the center of the grill and add the remaining olive oil. Make sure that the grill sits level so the oil is evenly distributed across the bottom of the pan.
When the oil is hot, add the rabbit and pork and season lightly with salt. Cook until the meat has lightly browned, about 3 minutes.
Add the fava beans and artichoke hearts, and cook briefly, stirring constantly.
Add the rice and tomato mixture and then the reserved stock. Taste the stock and add salt; it should taste fairly salty since the rice is so bland. Keep the fire very hot so you can maintain a boil. Do not stir the rice, but spoon stock over the top of any dry spots.
Cook until you no longer see liquid bubbling through the rice and the rice is making crackling, popping sounds, 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the size of the pan. Don’t worry if the rice appears to scorch on the bottom or the sides — that is desirable.
When the rice is done, lay the rosemary stalks on top and cover with newspaper to keep warm. Set aside for 5 minutes before serving.
Cooking ‘rituals’ must be followed
When it comes to paella, Perfecto Rocher makes it very clear there are rules that must be followed. “Paella is more ritual than something to eat,” he says.
When you make paella, keep the fire as hot as you can get it; the rice always needs to be boiling.
Choose ingredients carefully. “Never use onion in a paella, never peas, never haricots verts (green beans) and absolutely never use chorizo. If you want to make rice with chorizo, go ahead, but don’t call it paella.”
Be careful with the pimenton. It scorches very quickly and becomes bitter. “If you burn the pimenton, you just have to start over.”
Don’t stir the paella too much once it has started cooking. Just spoon the broth over any dry spots. “If you touch it too much, you break the composition of the paella.”
Be decisive. “A good paellero does not add stock twice. One time; that’s it.”
Add rice only to a depth of half of your little finger. “If you have more than that, the rice on top will be raw and the rice underneath will be overcooked.”
Eat paella from the pan. “It’s a group thing; it’s sharing. In Valencia, (Spain) you only put paella on a plate for the kids.”
— Russ Parsons
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