Do you cook stuff depending on who’s going to be present? Perhaps to impress people? If you and yourself are going to be present, then cereal is a perfectly acceptable dinner. As far as I know, an exquisite finish-the-day dish can be pieces of cheese with good bread and jam or honey. Even a nice, rich bowl of gelato. Or a brownie. But I digress. If you’re having bigtime company over, let’s say your idol is coming back from the dead or Obama calls you and says he’s right around the corner….you kind of want something epic. But you don’t want that epic-ness to be tainted by complication or fuss. Enter, paella.

Paella is lavish and an absolute dramatic show-stopper while still somehow maintaining a downhome country-ish vibe. Entire cooking vessels are dedicated to its fruition. In Spain, this is a very popular and quintessential dish and it’s also widely available in your neighborhood Spanish restaurant. But you know what, you can make it right at home, with or without that aforementioned cooking contraption. It’s elegant yet totally approachable appeal also lies in the fact that the majority of its cooking time does not involve you whatsoever. It sits and finishes itself. So you can work just a bit, mingle with your guests and voila, it’s ready.

I was lucky enough to witness Spanish cuisine royalty, Claudia Roden, cook this paella from start to finish. She was totally unphased while she made it, and you can be, too. The only existing qualm is who gets the lovely, highly desirable crust that lies at the bottom. But if you surround yourself with good people, as I know you do, they will know sharing is caring.

Classic seafood paella

Adapted from The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden

Serves 4 generously, feel free to double the recipe if you’re serving a larger party

Notes: it’s traditional to use the seafood listed below, but feel free to use whatever is available to you. Also consider whole chunks of white fish (added ten minutes or so before the paella is done) or lobster, crab, or crayfish (boiled and separately and added at the end). Another variation is using clams instead of mussels.

It’s also traditional for this to not have any vegetables BUT I love my veggies, and if you do, too, add 4 quartered small artichoke hearts or bottoms, fresh or defrosted frozen, a good handful of peas, green beans or broad beans cut into short lengths, or roasted red peppers, cut into strips, with the rice.

1 large onion, finely chopped

5 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste or finely chopped

2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Salt

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

A good pinch of saffron threads

4 cleaned small squids, bodies sliced into 1/4 inch-wide rings, tentacles left whole

2 cups medium-grain Spanish paella rice or risotto rice, such as Arborio or Caranroli

3 cups fish or chicken stock, plus more if needed

1 cup dry white wine

12 jumbo shrimp in their shells

16 mussels, scrubbed and debearded

In a 16-inch paella pan or very large non-stick skillet, fry the onion in the oil until soft, stirring often, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic, and before it begins to color, add the tomatoes. Add the sugar, salt to taste, paprika, and saffron. Stir well, and cook until the tomatoes are reduced to a jammy sauce and the oil is sizzling. Add the squid and cook, stirring for a minute or so. Add the rice and stir well until all the grains are coated. (Note: you can prepare the dish to this point up to an hour in advance; reheat before continuing.)

In a separate sauce pan, bring the stock and wine to a boil. Pour over the rice, bring to a boil, and add salt to taste (even if the broth taste a bit salty, it will not be salty when it is absorbed by the rice). Stir well and spread the rice out evenly in the pan and do not stir again. Cook the rice over low heat for 18 to 20 minutes, moving the pan around and rotating it so that the rice cooks evenly. Lay the shrimp on top after 10 minutes and turn them when they have become pink on the first side.

Add a little more hot stock toward the end if the rice seems too dry and you hear crackly frying noises before it is done. When the rice is done, turn off the heat and cover the pan with a large piece of foil.

Steam the mussels with a finger of water in a pan with a tight-fitting lid. Add soon as they open, they are cooked. Throw away any that have not opened, they are bad.

Arrange the mussels on top of the paella and serve.