The L.A. Paella, Wine & Beer Festival features paellas and “paellas” aplenty. The 2018 event will be held in October at Pershing Square (Hey! An excuse to ride Metro while borracho!)
There’s a decent chance of finding socarrat at these gatherings. I went 2 years ago, and it was very nice. Admittedly, I was also a bit too inebriated to remember whose paella was best, but I do recall enough that it was worth the price of admission. I have zero financial interest in this event - this is purely a public service announcement.
Well, when you’re cooking paella for the masses rather than just for a table for 2 or 4, you’re going to get paella cooked on giant pans, and there’s no time to allow for socarrat to form… Even paella from La Espanola in Harbor City was just OK…
I’ve been to festivals in Valencia with wonderfully large communal paellas, and all of them were finished WITH socarrat. You’re right that they do take their time cooking paellas in Spain, and less so elsewhere. Chefs generally tend to get impatient with paella here in the states.
In L.A., the La Espanola paella is still the one to beat (true, there’s generally no socarrat, but at least the sofrito flavor consistently infuses into the arroz, and it’s not a mushy mess).
I an not a chef - not by any means - but my in-home partner in crime is quite a good one and she loves making paella on the grill and I love eating it.
My observation is that a really, really great soccarrat is a REALLY, REALLY difficult thing to achieve - there are a lot of variables and it takes a whole lot of time and more importantly TIMING to get it “right.” She’s no Spaniard, but her paella is pretty terrific, though nailing a perfect soccarrat seems to happen no more than about 50%-60% of the time. And that’s with constant vigilance.
Tell me about it. When asked, my server had the ballz to tell me that because orders were coming in too quickly so socarrat didn’t have a chance to form yet…uhh…then why did you guys serve them before they were done?! Such BS…
That’s a very good summary of my one (and only) experience at The Bazaar. Very enjoyable, but it wasn’t transcendent. But it’s entirely possible that I also just don’t “get” molecular gastronomy.