This is how I make paella as a personal chef in Beverly hills.

This is how I make paella as a personal chef in Beverly hills.

I feel like this video might make a few people mad but here we go.
Most of the time when I go eat paella at a restaurant, there’s not much seafood because there is only so much that can fit in the pan with all the shells and the seafood is far overcooked because it’s cooked alongside the rice. My method allows me to fit in way more seafood and control the cook of the seafood.
You might not like it, but this is how I, and my clients like it. It also allows my clients to be classy and eat without getting their hands dirty because most of the shellfish is right there.

A lot of you guys have asked for longer videos, so here is a test one! Let’s see if it works out. If not, I will be going back to videos under 3 minutes!

#cooking #food #personalchef #privatechef #technique #spanishcuisine

this is how I make my paella as a personal chef in Beverly Hills this one’s going to be a long one with a lot of info so I hope you’re ready my clients are having guests tonight and they requested seafood paella few things I want to get out of the way one of my clients cannot have fresh peppers so I will not be using any bell peppers in this dish first thing I want to do is get the sofa going so I chop up a few onions throw it in a pot with enough olive oil to cover salt and a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary normally I would put peppers in at this point but well I already told you why I’m not then cook that down until it’s at the point where it’s about to start caramelizing i like to add the tomato paste and garlic around this time because I cooked the onion at a higher temperature at the beginning and don’t want to risk burning the tomato paste or the garlic i’m going to mix that in and throw it into the oven at 250° for 4 hours just let that gently cook and deeply caramelize without worrying about burning it while that’s going I ran to Italy to get some seafood i’ve actually never been here this early so it was cool to see the fish case completely filled like this it’s beautiful then my boy over here set me up with all my clams muscles scallops and shrimps i wanted to get lobster as well but they were looking pretty scrawny so I passed i had to go pick up some green bananas for my client but as some of you guys know I am color blind and cannot tell what bananas are green or yellow this has been my lifetime struggle so I hunted down an employee to help me out thank you sir then I headed back to my client’s home and it’s time for lunch one yolk and three egg whites with a slice of toasted sourdough bread i collect shrimp heads and shells whenever my clients request them just for these occasions so I took them out of the freezer laid them out on a sheet pan and get them roasting in the oven for stock it’s time to clean my seafood first are the scallops most of you guys know this but for those who don’t this is called the foot of the scallop it’s the adductor muscle that holds the shell together and it’s pretty tough so we’re going to remove it then I salt them put them onto paper towels on both sides to soak up any excess moisture for the shrimps I’m going to cure them with a mix of 3/4 salt and 1/4 sugar to season them and also to accentuate the sweetness of the shrimp i’m going to lay them on paper towels as well right next to the scallops to pick up moisture now for some tedious work I like to really clean my shellfish especially muscles they always have little barnacles and things on them and I find the best way to get them clean is by using the tip of another muscle just scrape them until they’re nice and pretty see look how nasty that is always debeard your muscles it’s easy just grab them and pull them for clams I usually like to let them soak in salted water overnight to purge them of any sand but we don’t have time for that today so I just shake them up and give them a rough mix and change the water a few times until the water runs clear kind of like rice but with clams so this is where things deviate from how pa is traditionally made my clients and I really really like our seafood like a whole lot of seafood so this is what I do in a large pot I just saute some onions and garlic with a bit of salt throw in 95% of my shellfish saving a handful of each for the final cooking process and throw in a bunch of white wine to steam them i like to pull out the shellfish right as they pop open so that they’re not overcooking over cooking shellfish is a crime now to get all that shellfish meat to fit into my pa I remove all the meat from the shell this is also when I go through each piece of steamed muscle meat and make sure there are no hidden beards nasty then to that white wine liquid with all that flavorful clam and muscle juice I add back in the shells and the roasted shrimp shells adding water and chicken stock i’m going to simmer this for an hour and this will be my paella stock maximum seafood flavor and as you guys know guest means caviar so I do the usual buttered toast points chopped hard-boiled eggs and chives i’m going to make you look at my chives every time got a bit of time before the guests arrive so I made a quick churro batter with AP flour salt baking powder avocado oil and boiling hot water mix that up and throw it into a piping bag and for the cinnamon sugar it’s just going to have cinnamon and sugar ah and you can’t have pa without saffron so I get my saffron crush it a bit between my fingers and let it sit in hot water to get all that color and flavor out this is what my sofri look like after 4 hours the smell is insane and it’s so sweet from all that slow caramelization all that’s left to do is remove the stems of the herbs time to get the pa going so I strain the stock twice to make sure there are no shards of shells or sand that might have been hiding the clam guests will be here very soon so I start searing my scallops and then the shrimps only cooking them halfway so I can finish them later guests have arrived so it’s time to serve them their cocktails which happen to be vodka tonics and their caviar platters i’m sorry if you guys are getting bored of the caviar platters but the guests love them now back to the paella i add in the soprito get it nice and hot and toss in the bomba rice make sure you use bomba rice or kalaspara rice traditionally these are the only rice that are used for paella because well they’re from Spain and that’s what they use mainly because they’re very good at absorbing lots of stock without getting mushy perfect for paella the toasted in that sofrito oil and coat it with all that flavor then I throw in smoked paprika and let it bloom in the oil my client may not be able to have fresh peppers but he is okay with smoked paprika i don’t know i don’t make the rules okay leave me alone now before the paprika and the rice start to burn I add a decent amount of white wine reduce it add all that saffron water season with salt because no one likes a bland paella and I start adding in our flavor packed seafood stock this is where it gets tricky i just shake the pan to get the stock settled and flatten out the rice you cannot I repeat cannot go in there and start moving around the rice otherwise you’ll end up with a mushy starchy mess now I’m just going to let this gently simmer until the rice is cooked adding more stock as it gets absorbed until the rice is 90% cooked as you can see I had to use the grill because it’s the only way I could heat up something this big the heat is uneven so I had to constantly baby it turning it moving it kind of sucks but I got to do what I got to do now once the rice is 90% cooked I add in the shellfish that I saved so that it can look nice and pretty the rice is now basically done so I throw in all those shucked clams and muscle meat top with the shrimps and scallops leaving it for a bit longer to crisp the bottom of the pan and finish heating up that shellfish then I take it inside and get ready to plate i garnish with chives pile of seafood and rice high on the plates with a wedge of lemon and off they go and to pair with their paella they’re going to have some fare as they eat their mains I finish up their dessert i pivoted last minute to making bonos instead of churros thought it would be cuter i piped them onto parchment papers throw them face down into the oil and get them nice and crispy then straight into the cinnamon sugar to coat served it with chocolate sauce scoop of vanilla ice cream sitting on top of that chocolate shortbread crumble from before and off they go smash or pass