Considering the wealth of seafood on our very doorstep, it is perhaps surprising that New Zealand does not lead the world in its preparation. Beyond our enduring love of fish n chips, our seafood reputation is a little thin on the ground.

Acclaimed New Zealand "fusion" chef Peter Gordon of prestigious London eateries Tapa Room and The Providores aims to change all that. Following in the footsteps of Sydney's renowned seafood school, The Auckland Fish Market Seafood School offers a vast array of seafood classes, some thirty three courses. An innovation compared with most cooking schools is that instead of watching a mouth watering dish being prepared and then heading home somewhat unfulfilled, you actually cook the same recipes under the chef's expert eye.

As the Auckland Fish Market Seafood School offers courses in Hispanic seafood, we promptly turned up to check out "Paella- The Story & Portuguese Fish."

Taught by Glynn Christian, Paella expert and long time English television cooking pioneer, the class promised to teach the rich story of the Paella, and what a journey it was. From the culinary legacy of the Moors to the best places to eat on the Mediterranean, our cooking class was as much a history lesson as a cooking one.

Ushered into the cosy lecture theatre, we sat down to watch Glynn cook. On the menu today was the classic Seafood Paella, a Portuguese Sauce for poached fish steaks (Molho de Camarao para Peixe) and two Iberian almond sauces (Salsa de Almendra), one featuring chicken liver, sherry and tomato, the other a Mallorcan recipe ideally suited to rascasse and scorpion fish.

Glynn ever the perfectionist is at pains to point out that "you can't just use olive oil, it has to be olive oil matched to the recipe…" We learn that olive oil for instance varies in its taste being hot and peppery in Tuscany for instance.

We also learn that the Paella is a gift from the Moors, and that the rice we use, calasparra absorbs three times its volume in flavor.
Audience participation is encouraged and as our Paella and sauces take shape, we are invited to taste the dish at various stages to know what to strive for. All the time Glynn happily fields questions from what by his own admission is his near encyclopedic knowledge of food, "just like some people know what a soccer score was twenty years ago…" In fact there seems little Glynn doesn't know about food; when one wag cheekily asks what happened to English cooking, Glynn solemnly replies "Oliver Cromwell". Turns out the puritan Lord Protector of the Realm banned spice from English cooking…

After watching Glynn prepare the menu, we are ushered from the lecture theatre to our cooking stations, equipped with every convenience one can imagine and probably a few one cannot. Looking at our fish, it's easy to see the advantages of being located right next to a fish mart. In fact nothing is left to chance, from our pre-cut and measured ingredients, to the laminated recipes, the state of the art kitchen, and the ever attentive Glynn and company; it proves practically impossible not to reproduce a pretty fine facsimile of Glynn's ministrations earlier.

After much self-congratulatory praise at our cooking (why not?), we settle in to taste our work. The verdict? Not bad, not bad at all; Glynn tells us next time it might be better to use a little less fish stock in our Paella. Our Iberian almond sauces and grilled fish steaks are pretty much spot on however. One very enjoyable meal later its time to leave; we receive a folder not only of the recipes but also of the appropriate wine matchings, taking care to describe what textures and flavors to expect. With professional courses such as these we may yet escape our love of fish n chips…

SEAFOOD PAELLA

This is a basic recipe, and paella loves to be experimented on. It's also one of the few places where meat and seafood successfully meet. Chicken is a common starting point, and so is pork or ham. Rabbit and snails are often found, as is a good selection of vegetables, especially peas, beans, tomatoes and artichoke hearts. Yet nothing is better than saffron rice with seafood and fish alone.

Don't get hung up on following ingredients exactly. In fact a paella is anything cooked in a paelleria, usually based on rice but not always. If you reheated baked beans and sausage in a paelleria you can call it a paella.

Valencia short-grain rice is most commonly specified, but the best and correct variety is Calasparra rice. Its name and origin are protected by Spanish Government decree, and it also has the unique quality of absorbing and holding up to three times its volume of liquid, so they fatten up considerably more that you expect.

Paella is essentially a dish of eastern Spain, from the area around Valencia. Most traditionally men, cook it over a wood fire, for Sunday lunch: so the use of smoked snapper helps get a more authentic flavour.

You will commonly find saffron added late in the process, but I think it's much better to get it in early and thus distributed evenly throughout the dish.,

PAELLA RECIPE

Serves up to six

500g Calasparra rice
big pinch saffron threads
125ml Spanish olive oil, ideally an arbequina
1/4 cup finely chopped onion, more or less
2 or more cloves garlic, crushed, peeled and chopped or
12 whole cloves of garlic, skin and all
1/2 green capsicum, in strips
1/2 red capsicum, in strips
2 ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1.5-2 litres water or fish stock
250g shelled, de-veined prawns
250g cleaned small squid
500g lightly smoked snapper
12-24 small green-lipped mussels, scrubbed and bearded
(optional) peas, beans, cooked, shell-on prawns or shrimps for decoration.

Put the saffron threads or powder into a small cup and pour on half a cup of boiling water. Let steep.

Heat the oil in a large pan and then cook the onions over a lowish heat until they are melting and sweet. Add the garlic, capsicums and tomato and continue cooking for another five to ten minutes over the same low heat. Now is a good time to prepare the seafood.

When you are ready, stir the saffron and the steeping liquid into the pan ingredients and then add all the rice and a litre of water or stock. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat so it cooks gently and the liquid is absorbed. Stir from time to time to ensure even cooking of the rice. Stir in half the remaining stock, and then arrange the seafood and smoked fish on top. Cover loosely with foil and cook on until the liquid is again absorbed, If the rice is not cooked, add more. Keep the temperature quite low: in fact you can finish a paella in the oven.

When it is cooked, take off the foil and cover with a thick tea towel and let stand for ten minutes covered with a thick tea towel. Stir through some lightly cooked peas or beans as you lightly fluff up the rice and mix the ingredients well (discard mussels that are not opened).

Serve with lemon wedges, but encourage moderation or the expensive flavour of the saffron will be ambushed. Grilled lemon wedges are a better and more interesting idea.

www.aucklandfishmarket.co.nz
email: seafoodschool@afm.co.nz
Phone: 09 379 1497
Fax: 09 379 1498