July 20–Classic Spanish paella is a dietary minefield for vegans. It can be loaded with salty ham, spicy sausage and chicken pieces, and it is sure to have an array of seafood dotting the saffron-colored rice.
Before switching to a plant-based diet, paella was part of my regular cooking repertoire. I loved making it for dinner parties because of the “wow factor” of bringing the super-size pan to the table while it’s still steaming.
I figured that pan would now gather dust in the pantry or be donated to charity — until I discovered Blossoming Lotus chef Wes Hannah’s unique vegan interpretation of paella made with quinoa.
“When you work in restaurants a long time, you see trends come and go,” he says. “Paella is usually done with rice. But right now, quinoa is really popular. So this is something that’s pretty traditional, but done with a trendy ingredient.”
At first glance, substituting this South American whole grain for traditional paella rice sounds strange, but when you consider quinoa’s versatility, it starts to make sense. In the morning, it can be enjoyed as a porridge. At night, it makes an excellent backdrop for Asian stir-fries. So why not make it the foundation for vegetarian paella?
“I think of paella as a Spanish version of Creole beans and rice,” he says. “It’s has a nice variety of flavors.”
The trick, Hannah says, is to find things in the vegetable world that have enough body to mimic the textures found in a classic rendition — without resorting to things like phony-baloney faux meats.
So Hannah loads his paella with fresh herbs, ground chiles and a melange of sauteed vegetables. And for chewy texture and a protein boost, he uses a vegan chorizo that’s made out of tofu (coagulated soy milk) and tempeh (cake-like fermented soybeans).
Hannah’s own culinary journey began when he was growing up in Tennessee and decided at age 14 to become a vegan. At the time in that state, opting to not eat meat was an act of teen defiance right up there with joy rides and breaking curfew. His folks were not amused.
“They didn’t understand it, no one in my school understood it,” he says. “My parents stopped cooking for me, so the first couple of weeks I didn’t know what to eat other than peanut butter sandwiches and tomato soup. So I had to learn how to cook.”
A lot has changed in the nearly two decades since. Now when he heads home he can find organic produce and vegan ingredients at the local Walmart. Attitudes have shifted significantly, even his parents’.
“My parents ask me to cook for them now,” he says. “Back then, people in Tennessee hadn’t even heard of tofu, or they were scared of it. Now they try my food, they like it, and they ask me to make it again and again.”
At Blossoming Lotus, Hannah serves paella as an occasional special, depending on what he’s finding fresh at the farmers markets, trying to keep the dish as local as possible. In the spring, he might sprinkle the dish with freshly shelled peas. In late summer, fresh sweet-corn kernels might stud the quinoa, and in the fall, diced squash might take the lead. When Hannah offered it earlier this month, it was built around the season’s abundant kale
And that’s the beauty of paella, whether you’re making it with meat or without. It’s a grab bag of different flavors that come together as they simmer, whatever the season.
Sorry, Goodwill, the paella pan is staying with me for good!
Grant Butler: 503-221-8566; gbutler@news.oregonian.com
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