On "arroz con mariscos"

    "Arroz con mariscos" is simply rice with shellfish in it. I wouldn't say that it's a dish that pertains to a specific country or cuisine because almost every region in central america, south america, and the mediterranean has his or her version of it. I feel that what they all share in common is that the rice is cooked in a tomato and saffron base with shellfish added to it right at the end. I have the title in quotations because as I said before there is no such thing as the arroz con mariscos, this is just my interpretation of it. I made it as a special the other night and served it with a lime aioli. Aioli is the traditional condiment for Paella, so i figured that if it works for paella it should work for the special (it mirrors the dish in many ways).

    What I like to do when I prepare this dish is to pre-cook the rice ahead of time. I use valencia rice and pre-cook it with a mussel stock (using my shellfish stock application), onions, garlic, basil, salt, white pepper, bay leaves and saffron. You want to cook the rice 75% of the way which will make the cooking process much faster when you execute the dish. On pick up, I warm up some extra virgin olive oil in a sauté pan. Once the oil has come to temperature I add garlic, basil and manilla clams. Manilla clams are great in that they are smaller in size and cook much faster. Once the garlic is golden brown; add more  mussel stock, shrimp, and  rice to the pan. Set over high heat, the stock is going to boil and  finish cooking the rice and shrimp. The manilla clams will cook fairly quickly and you want to make sure to take them out as soon as they open to prevent them from over cooking. By the time your mussel stock is almost completely absorbed your rice and shrimp should be cooked, I add my clams back at this point along with the mussel meat that was reserved from making the mussel stock. Finish the dish by mounting it with  butter and add any other vegetables and herbs (in this case I used scallions and peas). I garnished the plate with some espelette pepper and lime aioli (egg yolk+blended oil+garlic+lime juice/zest+salt).