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Gigantic Paëlla
Gigantic Paëlla
charie


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Recipe (Food) II (Basic Editing III)
Camera: Canon EOS-20D
Location: Paris
Date: Jan 7, 2006
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/200
Galleries: Food and Drink
Date Uploaded: Jan 8, 2006

 Paella
Serves Eight


8 chicken legs
3 chorizo sausages, cut into 1 inch pieces
4 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 1/2 cups medium grain rice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon saffron threads
4 cups chicken stock (or 2 cups chicken stock and 2 cups clam juice)

1 pound shelled & cleaned shrimp marinated in:
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup white wine



1/2 pound fresh mussels and/or clams
2 cans artichoke hearts, drained
1 jar whole pimentos, drained
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas, cooked and drained
8 lobster claws or crab claws
2 lemons, quartered




In a large pan, brown the chicken legs and sausages in the olive oil. Add chopped onions and garlic, brown. Remove meat mixture from pan and reserve. Add rice to pan and cook until slightly golden and transparent. Add salt and pepper. Bring stock to a boil. Dissolve saffron in the boiling stock. Cover rice with the stock and put the meat mixture back in the pan. Cover and cook slowly until the liquid is absorbed (about 30 minutes) on the cooktop.

Marinate shrimp for at least one hour. Remove from marinade before adding to paella pan after the liquid has absorbed into the rice.

Garnish paella with mussels/clams, artichoke hearts, pimentos, peas, crab and lobster. Cover and let the garnish ingredients steam for 20 minutes over a low fire (so the rice on the bottom does not burn). Serve with lemon sections

Statistics
Place: 56 out of 110
Avg (all users): 5.4753
Avg (commenters): 6.1905
Avg (participants): 5.3125
Avg (non-participants): 5.5154
Views since voting: 805
Views during voting: 456
Votes: 324
Comments: 24
Favorites: 1 (view)

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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
01/17/2006 04:08:25 PM
Beautiful food and a good DOF given how close in you were. For the image, I think a couple of things would have helped the score. 1) Loose the background with a piece of coloured card or black sweater over a chair 2) I'm not comfortable with the server. Perhaps if it had been clean
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/17/2006 12:04:23 PM
Good perspective and crop and nice use of depth of field. There is a lot of soft focus in the foreground but seems to work well in this composition. Appears to have a yellowish tungsten hue but that may be an illusion because of the color of the foods. Though a valid part of the dish the hair-like line near the upper top left of the food acts as a distraction for some viewers and probably should be removed.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/16/2006 01:23:06 PM
Looks fantastic but I think I would like to see a couple of the prawns as I am looking harder to see whats in it, could also have benefited from having a couple of muscles on the top. That aside I love the composistion , lighting is great and the colours are all great on my monitor. 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/15/2006 09:08:31 AM
Yummy! Love the dish.
 01/14/2006 10:57:51 PM
Don Pepe's here I come.
 01/14/2006 10:54:25 PM
It looks like you have enough to feed an army..... It looks good, and it is also photographed well.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/14/2006 09:08:31 AM
Looks yummy but my eye can't find a place to rest.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/12/2006 01:00:54 PM
This might have been better if you were a little closer in. It's hard to make out the details of what is in this dish, although it looks very yummy. Consequently my eye moves around the photo quite a bit but I keep focusing on the one thing that draws my attention, the spatula, which is kind of out of focus and not nearly as interesting as the food.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/11/2006 11:29:34 PM
Nice picture.
 01/11/2006 09:45:13 PM
i love the colors here.
 01/11/2006 07:45:14 PM
Oh this looks so good!
 01/11/2006 05:12:04 PM
Gosh, that looks good. I love paella. Nice colors.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/11/2006 02:32:20 PM
Yummy my favorite!
 01/11/2006 01:35:08 PM
Nice colours.
 01/11/2006 10:47:31 AM
That is inviting! It would be better if the foreground were in focus, even at the expense of more background out of focus because the eyes are drawn to the bright serving spoon (which is unfortunately out of focus).
 01/11/2006 09:10:13 AM
Makin me hungry ... like a handful of other photos, this shot seems "flat." Might have been more effective to feature some of the ingredients prominently rather than mixing everything together.
 01/11/2006 06:00:20 AM
wow, really gigantic ... did you eat that ?
 01/11/2006 06:00:14 AM
Nice one. Really like the angle which it has been shot. Straight top or side wouldnt give any perspective, but this angle and the spoon (or whatwassit) give quite alot more idea about size of that thing.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/11/2006 05:27:52 AM
I can't see that's it's Gigantic, no size reference anywhere, too close to the subject. Petit probleme de profondeur de champs aussi ;-) ou bien c voulu?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/11/2006 03:56:00 AM
that's massive...I want some! lovely shot
 01/11/2006 03:38:27 AM
waw, do you wanna kill us? mmmm
 01/11/2006 03:28:55 AM
Nice colors, clear and sharp. Food looks good too!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 01/11/2006 02:28:02 AM
That's a real paella! As far as the picture goes, the foreground and the serving spoon are out of focus. Spoils the picture.
 01/11/2006 12:26:46 AM
Looks like it's all in a huge frying wok, since those peas are unbelievably small on this shot. It's not a bad thing of course. The composition is quite good. A variety of contrasting colours makes it even more appealing. Great focus as well, draws you to the shrimp. I giving this a 7.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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