Chicken And Sausage Paella, A Guest Post-Wine Pairing
Paella
I am so excited about this post, not just because I have made paella, one of my favorite dishes but because I have collaborated with a wine expert who graciously paired wine specifically for this dish. I contacted Stefano a certified sommelier and asked him if he would lend his expertise, choosing wine that would compliment the paella. He accepted, and I am so pleased to bring you his choices. Stefano is a brilliant photographer and sommelier and his blog Clicks & Corks recently launched. He previously posted with his wife Francesca on her beautiful blog Flora’s Table. I love their posts, the food, wine and photographs are amazing. I enjoy wine, drinking and cooking with it but I am not an expert, I rely on my local wine merchant to help me pick wine based on what and how I cook and drink. I know what I like but ask me to tell you about it and I become verklempt. Clicks & Corks has a wealth of information regarding wine, there is a glossary full of interesting and helpful information. I sent Stefano what I was making along with the ingredients and based on that he was able to choose 2 wines specifically for this dish. My favorite wine purveyor, Brian who owns Gnarly Vines in Brooklyn did not carry the exact wine that Stefano recommended but went above and beyond for me and found both wines, I was thrilled. Here is a link to the ISA guidelines for wine pairing that was posted on Flora’s table, it’s fascinating. I chose to drink the Soave Classico “Calvarino” with the meal and loved it, this wine paired perfectly with the paella, it’s clean and light and very smooth, there is a minerality that is very distinct, I could tell the soil in which the grapes were grown is rich and produces exceptional grapes. The wine complimented the paella so well, the crisp clean white wine offset the richness of the dish. Stefano knows what he is doing when he chose this wine. I haven’t opened the other wine yet but have no doubt that it will also be amazing. This wine will pair perfectly with seafood also, in my non expert opinion.
This paella is pretty simple, I chose to use chicken thighs and sausage and no seafood, it’s easy to make and isn’t as finicky as paella that contains different types of seafood. I love to drizzle it with aioli, now aioli is traditionally made with raw garlic, oil and an acid. Because I am not a fan of raw garlic I roasted it, used both olive and vegetable oil and added saffron building on the flavors in the paella.
Roasted garlic, saffron,lemon aioli
The Aioli:
- 3-4 large cloves of garlic (3 if you want it subtle and 4 for stronger garlic flavor)
- 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 2 Egg yolks
- 1/4 cup Freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Lemon Zest
- Freshly ground white or black pepper
- 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil (Canola works well)minus 2 tbs
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbs olive oil.
- A generous pinch of saffron
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, while oven is heating peel 4 large cloves of garlic place on aluminum foil and drizzle with olive oil and make a packet. Place on sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes or until garlic is soft.
- Let garlic cool, while it’s cooling squeeze and zest the lemons. Add the generous pinch of saffron to the lemon juice and let sit for approx. 10-15 minutes the lemon juice will turn a lovely vibrant yellow.
- In your blender place the garlic cloves,egg yolks, lemon juice w/saffron, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Blend until garlic is completely incorporated it doesn’t take long as the garlic is soft.
- With blender running, slowly add the oil, the mixture will become thick. Adjust seasoning if you desire. Refrigerate while you make the Paella. This can be made in advance it keeps for 2-3 days in refrigerator.
Paella with saffron rice:
- 3 cups long grain white rice
- 6 cups chicken stock to cook the rice heated.
- 1 small sweet onion chopped
- 2 tablespoons Butter
- 2 tablespoons Olive Oil + plus more for chicken and tomatoes
- 6 chicken thighs (bone in and skin on)
- 1/2 pound Italian sausage (sweet or hot)
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1/14 cup chicken stock for paella
- A generous pinch of saffron for the rice.
- 12 cherry or grape tomatoes
- First make the saffron rice. Heat the olive oil and butter in large saucepan, add onion and cook until soft and translucent, add the rice and stir to coat. Add the saffron to the heated stock and add to the rice, let it come to a boil, reduce heat, cover pan and let cook for approx. 15 minutes. Remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Set the rice aside.
- Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and place in baking pan, drizzle with olive oil and bake in 450 degree oven for 20 30 minutes. Don’t discard the pan juices, pour some onto the rice when you are putting the paella together.
- Reduce oven temp to 375 degree’s, lay a piece of parchment on baking sheet and place tomatoes on parchment, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake until tomatoes become soft and start to caramelize. It takes approximately 15- 20 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.
- Heat a fry pan(use the large pan you will use for the paella) coated with a little olive oil and brown the sausages. Remove from the pan and set aside covered. Don’t drain the oil (it won’t be much) or pan juices you will use this same pan to cook the paella). Slice sausage just before assembling the paella.
- If you have a paella pan thats wonderful but if you are like me and do not use a large (14″) fry pan with a lid. Using the same fry pan you used for the sausage, turn flame to medium/high. Add the saffron rice and peas mix to incorporate the peas with the rice, then start layering. Add the chicken thighs and sausage. Pour the 1 1/4 cups of chicken stock over the paella, spoon some of the pan juices from the chicken on top cover and cook for 15 minutes, approximately 3 minutes before its done add the tomatoes, put the lid back on and cook for the remaining time. Remove from heat. Garnish with chopped parsley and drizzle with the aioli.
Fantastico!!
Wine Pairing:
By Stefano Crosio-Clicks & Corks
Based on the above guidelines, I am going to recommend two wines that I have recently tasted at the Vinitaly/Slow Wine trade fair in New York: they both possess the desired characteristics to be good companions to Suzanne’s paella and they both have particularly impressed me when I tasted them. Clearly, these two wines are by no means the only ones that go well with Suzanne’s paella! However, on the one hand their descriptions, coupled with the general guidelines provided above, should point you in the right direction should you wish to consider different alternatives and, on the other hand, if you are going to give either or both of these wines a try, they might introduce some of you to two Italian wines that are maybe not so “mainstream” or widely known in the US market and that yet are excellent and showcase the treasure chest of indigenous grape varieties that constitute the backbone of centuries of Italy’s wine culture.
I will now leave you with my tasting notes for the two recommended wines, plus the certainty that you will enjoy Suzanne’s delicious paella dish and the hope you will get to drink some good wine with it! 🙂
apuginthekitchen 
Nice and inspiring collaboration. I’ll be waiting to see more like this one.
Thanks Alex I plan on more of these pairings, maybe beer too!
Suzanne, thank you for your way too kind mention. Your paella looks fantastic and with the saffron rice is just a perfect combination. For obvious reasons, I won’t comment on your wine-pairing guest. 😉
Thanks Francesca, it was great working with Stefano on this and I love collaborating with other bloggers and especially an expert like Stefano,
I love love love paella. It’s one of my all-time favourites. And although I nearly always drink red wine, even I have to admit that white wine goes better with paella. I can’t comment on the choice of wines because I’m not very familiar with Italian wines, but the ones I do know I are light and crisp so I would imagine that would be a great complement…
I also drink mostly reds, but the white went so well with the paella it really opened my mind and palette and broadened my horizons. Thank you so much.
i love paella! i threw a big Christmas party one year and made paella for the crowd. it worked out great. thanks for the reminder! I love this collaboration with wine pairings!! Have a great weekend.
Thank you Susan, it’s one of my favorites and is open to interpretation which is one of the things I love so much about the dish.
LOVE the picture of the pug with a whisk. LOVE!!!!
I love it too, found on Pintrest, it’s a vintage drawing and I fell in love with it! Thank you.
Thank you so much for your super nice words, Suzanne: very mich appeciated 🙂
I totally love your paella and am happy to her that you liked the Soave I recommended to go with it! It’s a pretty special wine, even for red wine lovers 😉
Take care and thanks again!
No, thank you Stefano for the wonderful wine pairing and guest post. It’s amazing and even though I drink mostly red wine, primarily because I don’t really know my whites very well.I feel like I have turned a corner now and new world has opened up, ok, a bit of an exaggeration maybe but you did introduce me to a wine I would not have thought to pair with this dish and I really loved it! Thank you so much for this, I for one have learned so much from you and I truly appreciate it.
Thanks for offering up an example of how to apply the excellent wine pairing post by Stefano to complement your lovely paella. I love wine, but have never applied these ideas and tend to guess my matches a bit too much, so your post inspires to to think a bit more deeply about pairings. Thanks.
Thank you, there really is a science to wine pairing, I am afraid I am a total novice and just blindly pick and hope for the best. The guidelines are fascinating and it opened a whole new world for me. I am so grateful to Stefano for the enlightening guest post. It’s wonderful to have an expert to teach the nuances of wine pairing.
Suzanne,
I love the wine pairing and am looking forward to a future beer one! Your paella looks exquisite and delicious! Something I have never prepared. I have just begun drinking more white wine versus red. Loving it. And I love your new pug picture! Way too cute 🙂
Thanks so much Judy, I tend to drink more white wine in the summer months but have to say this white is perfect with the paella, it’s really easy to make and doesn’t take an inordinate amount of time to prepare. It makes a wonderful presentation for a dinner party! Isn’t that pug the cutest!!!
I would like to try this with mild Italian sausage. I know my son would love it!! Looks delicious 🙂
Loving the pug!!
I made it with mild sausage, I like the taste of hot sausage but am a bit of a wimp when it comes to heat. It’s great with the mild stuff!
Paella is so exotic and good to work with, this recipe looks fantastic 😀
Cheers
CCU
Thank you so much, it is really good and pretty easy to make too!
Good idea – Suzanne – and I will put paella on my must-cook list! I’m apt though – to drink whatever wine is on hand….
Thank you, I hope you enjoy. I usually do just that, drink what is on hand but this was so nice having the wine paired specifically, a luxury I normally don’t have.
This was very interesting. I know very little about wine but deep down am quite interested. Paella I won’t attempt but love to devour it in restaurants and on pages of blogs! Very cool collaboration with Stefano and Francesca!
Thanks so much, yes this collaboration was so great, I love Stefano and Francesca, I really learned a lot and plan on visiting his site often to learn more. I know so little about wine, other than I enjoy drinking it.
Great recipe Suzanne, and I love that you are planning on more pairings! One of my resolutions this year was to learn more about wine and wine pairing (none of the “lose 10 pounds” for me! haha). Can’t wait for your next post! xo
Thank you Jody, that is also one of my goals with the wine and the losing 10 lbs although so far it has eluded me. Thank you again,
I love eating paella but haven’t gone about cooking them, yours look really delish! And thank you for the wine pairing, would love to try it out someday 🙂
Thanks Jasline, it is the perfect pairing. I was so happy to have someone else do the picking, of the wine that is.
Fabulous post! One of my favourite foods and the wine pairing was a great idea!!!
Thanks so much Cindy, it was a lot of fun!
Awesome post! I love the idea of incorporating wine recommendations with your beautiful paella – lovely!
Thank you, it was a learning experience for me, I know very very little about pairing wine with food and Stefano is an excellent teacher;
What a beautiful looking dish! I love, love that garlic saffron aioli…I bet the flavor is amazing! I love too your guest post…amazing idea and the wine, wow. Salivating!
Thanks Brandi, the guest post was a lot of fun to do and I love the choice of wine with the paella, it would be really good as a vegetarian dish with the aioli!
Beautiful pairing! A great food needs a great wine as well!
Thanks so much Katerina!
This is brilliant, Suzanne! What a fabulous idea to do a tutorial on wine-pairing! I love it! I am one who just serves what I like, so this is so great to know what sommeliers are actually doing when they are pairing wine and food! Thanks for the post, I will be referring back to it! 😉
Thanks so much Christina, it was eye opening for me, I am also one who drinks what I have or blindly picks (must confess sometimes a pretty bottle or label sway me) this was a revelation and I will never look at wine pairing the same way again,
Wonderful! I’ll to re-create this at home.
Thank you very much, it’s easy to make and so delicious.
Wow, this looks amazing. Big fan of Francesca’s and Stefano’s blog. Great collaboration!
Thank you, I just saw your blog and followed, it’s beautiful. I am also a huge fan of Francesca and Stefano both of them are immensely talented. Thank you again.