Spanish Seafood Paella

My family visited Barcelona in March 2019, which was the 2nd time I went to this beautiful city.  Besides enjoying their delicious tapas, I also love their seafood paella.  If you have a chance to visit Barcelona, make sure you stop by La Mar Salada.  They had the best seafood paella I ever ate!  Although other restaurants have good reviews on their paella, it was too salty for us.   The reason I decided to make this seafood paella at home is because I cannot find one restaurant in California that serves the paella similar to La Mar Salada’s.  I have made this several times already and it reminded my family of Barcelona.  The most important thing in making this dish is to use fresh clams, large shrimp and fresh mussels.

Ingredients:

1 lbs	Shrimp with head
2 lbs	Fresh clams
2	Squids
10	Fresh mussels
4 cups	Spanish Paella rice
3	Medium size tomatoes
1	Large white onion
4	Garlic cloves
6 cups	Chicken broth
1.5 cup	Dry white wine
2 tsp	Salt
2 tsp	Paprika
1 tsp	Brown sugar
1 pinch	Saffron
	Calm juice from steaming

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, soak saffron threads in hot water for 20 minutes.  (Picture 1)
2. Use a toothpick to remove the digestive vein along the back of the shrimp without peeling off the shell.  (Picture 2)
3. Scrub the calms with a kitchen toothbrush and set aside.  (Picture 3)
4. Scrub and debeard mussels, set aside.  (Picture 4)
5. Slice squid just below the eyes, separating the tentacles from the head and reserve tentacles.  Gently pull out the head, intestines, ink sac, and clear skeleton; discard innards.  Slice body crosswise into rings.  (Picture 5)
6. Finely chop the white onion. (Picture 6)
7. Finely chop garlic.  (Picture 7)
8. Chop tomatoes. (Picture 8)
9. In a small pot, bring the chicken broth and white wine to a boil.
10. Fry the onion in a cast iron paella pan until soft.  (Picture 9)
11. Add in minced garlic and fry for 1 minute.  (Picture 10)
12. Add in tomatoes.  (Picture 11)
13. Add sugar, 1 tsp of salt and paprika (Pictures 12-14)
14. Add saffron threads and its water, stir well and cook until tomatoes are a little pasty.  (Picture 15)
15. Add the squid and stir for about a minute.  (Picture 16)
16. Add rice and stir well until all the grains are coated. (Picture 17)
17. Pour hot stock over the rice, bring to a boil, add the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt to taste.  Move the pan around and rotate it so that rice cooks evenly.  (Picture 18)
18. Lay shrimp on top after 10 minutes of cooking the rice, and turn them when they become pink on one side.  Continue to cook the rice for another 15 minutes. (Picture 19)
19. 5 minutes before the rice is ready, steam the mussels and calms.  Reserve the shell fish juice and pour the juice to the rice and cook the rice for 2 additional minutes.