Daring Cooks - Rice with Mushrooms, Squid & Artichokes

This month's daring cooks challenge is hosted by Olga from Las Cosas de Olga and Olga's Recipes, and the recipe was a Spanish dish: rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes by José Andrés - a chef trained under Ferran Adria of El Bulli.

I was quite happy when I found out about this month's challenge as I love paella. I've made paella quite a few times and so I didn't have much trouble there. I made a few substitutions like using squid for cuttlefish and jarred marinated artichokes instead of fresh ones. I found out much later that there's actually canned artichoke hearts in water stocked at my local supermarket. But the marinated ones worked out quite well. It was really tasty and I thought the tanginess of it went really well with the paella.

The biggest challenge would be making the allioli. First off, I don't have a pestle and mortar, so I had to use a bowl and a rolling pin. Then, the garlic and oil did not emulsify, I had to add an egg yolk to help emulsification. Luckily it turned out great - a bit too pungent for me but the wild boar loved it and had it with bread the next day. All in all, it was a great recipe, everyone really enjoyed it.

Ingredients: serves 2-3
Original recipe found here

• 250g squid - cleaned and cut into 1/2-inch thick rings
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 jars (370g total drained weight) chargrilled artichokes in oil (ingredients: Artichoke (60%), Sunflower Oil (31%), Extra Virgin Olive Oil (4%), Salt, Garlic, Parsley, White Wine Vinegar, Oregano, Citric Acid.)
• 12 closed cup mushrooms - sliced
• 3 tbs *sofregit (see below)
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 2 1/2 cups fish stock (low sodium)
• 200g paella rice
• A pinch of saffron
• Salt
• *Allioli (see below)

Directions:

• Heat up 1 tbs of olive oil in a pan and put the squid in the pan.
• Add bay leaves, mushrooms and artichokes. Cook until mushrooms are soft.
• Add a splash of the white wine. Leave to cook until dry.
• Mix in sofregit.
• Pour in the rest of the white wine and fish stock. Bring to boil.
• Mix in rice. Boil on high heat for 5 mins.
• Stir in saffron.
• Reduce heat, leave to cook for a further 8 mins or until rice is cooked. Stir once or twice.
• Add salt to taste.
• Serve with allioli.
  

Sofregit

Ingredients: makes about 2 cups

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 4 cloves of garlic - crushed
• 1 can (400g) canned plum tomatoes
• 2 small onions - diced
• 1 green bell pepper - diced
• 1 cup mushrooms - diced
• 1 bay leave
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground oregano
• Salt

Directions:

• Heat up olive oil in a pot, add onions and saute until translucent and soft.
• Add garlic, saute until fragrant.
• Add all other ingredients, bring to boil.
• Lower heat to simmer until all ingredients are soft and sauce is thick.
• Add salt to taste.
• Blend until smooth.

Allioli

Ingredients: makes about 1/2 cup

• 4 cloves of garlic - crushed
• A few drops of fresh lemon juice
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 egg yolk
• A pinch of salt

Directions:

• Pound garlic with a pinch of salt until a smooth paste is formed.

• Mix in lemon juice.
• Using a whisk, slowly whisk in olive oil. This was suppose to form an emulsion but it didn't. I might have added the oil too quickly. So I added an egg yolk to help emulsification. This also helped to tone down the strong pungent taste of garlic.

• It's amazing to see how it slowly thickened.

• Continue adding more oil until you get a very thick and creamy mixture. Not sure how much olive oil to add, but I added enough to make about 1/2 cup of allioli.

• Add salt to taste.