Paella is dependent on the proper fat-grained rice.
The rice, a short, fat-grained variety from the Mantua area, lends a creamy liquidity to the dish.
One of the paellas includes seafood, but the point of the dish is always the fat-grained Bomba rice, not the lobster or prawns with which it is cooked or the aioli with which it is anointed.
The dish was a harmonious marriage of fat, short-grained arborio rice sauteed with assorted mushrooms, the likes of shiitake, portobellos and criminis, mixed with caramelized onions, truffle butter and cheese, all in all a felicitous choice.
Instead of bringing the hot paella pan to the table in all its sizzling glory, an individual dish arrives, with a border of mussels and clams in their shells and jumbo shrimp, surrounding the bounteous paella of fat, short-grained saffron rice studded with chicken, chorizo, pork and peas.
First from Australia as "coarse-grained, overdone lumps with a wad of fat," then from the United States, whose tinned exports to Britain multiplied nearly 1,500 times between 1866 and 1871, and finally from Uruguay and Argentina, whose modern economies were founded largely on shipping tinned and refrigerated beef to London and Liverpool.
The most desirable pork is grayish pink in colour, firm and fine-grained, well-marbled, and covered with an outer layer of firm white fat.
Meanwhile, for an equally fine-grained account of living with Shakespeare, try Antony Sher's Year of the Fat Knight (Nick Hern).
Words are grained into our landscapes, and landscapes grained into our words.
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