Recommendations

Arroz caldoso con coquinas with Solear Barbadillo Manzanilla

Deep plates hold arroz caldoso: bomba rice cooked in home-made fish stock, with cockles, venus clams and squid that go in only at the very end. The manzanilla sets a pale, salty wine against it that comes from the same harbour as the shellfish.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Solear comes from Bodegas Barbadillo in Sanlucar de Barrameda and is a manzanilla; according to the Consejo Regulador, that name may only be used for wine aged in the bodegas of Sanlucar. The sea wind and high humidity there keep the velo de flor thicker and active for longer than further inland, and that gives the wine its lighter, saltier character. The grape is palomino fina, the ageing is biological under the flor, and Barbadillo keeps one of the longer ageing periods for this style. A manzanilla may have between 15 and 17 percent alcohol; this bottle is at 15 percent and comes in 75 centilitres.

Solear Barbadillo Manzanilla

The combination

Why this works together

Arroz caldoso con coquinas is a dish that floats entirely on seawater: as the shells open they release their own salty liquor into the rice, and the broth is drawn from mussels and prawn heads. A manzanilla from Sanlucar connects to that in the most direct way: the wine matures a few hundred metres from the mouth of the Guadalquivir, where those same cockles come from, and is itself pale, bone dry and salty. Technically, the following happens. The shellfish liquor brings salt and umami; research on flavour interactions shows that acidity lowers the threshold for perceiving salt, so the wine's acidity brings that salty layer to the front. Because the wine has no residual sugar, the distinction between salty and sweet stays sharp, and the 15 percent alcohol carries away the olive oil from the sofrito. For manzanilla, the Consejo names everything from the sea.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 100 g bomba rice
  • 170 g cockles
  • 130 g venus clams
  • 170 g mussels, for the stock
  • 100 g peeled prawns, with the heads and shells set aside for the stock
  • 130 g squid, in pieces
  • 130 g boneless white fish, diced
  • 1 onion, plus half an onion for the stock
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 red pepper
  • 270 g canned tomatoes, peeled
  • 1 ripe tomato and 1 carrot, for the stock
  • a few sprigs of parsley and 1 bay leaf
  • 1 litre water
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • a bunch of fresh coriander or parsley
  • salt and pepper

How to make it

  1. Leave the cockles and clams in cold water in the fridge so that they get rid of their sand. Change the water a few times.
  2. For the stock, brown the half onion, the ripe tomato, the carrot and the prawn heads and shells in a pan with oil.
  3. Add a litre of water with the parsley, the bay leaf, salt and pepper. Let this infuse for fifteen minutes over medium heat.
  4. Add the mussels and cook them for five to ten minutes, until they open. Take them out, remove the meat from the shells and strain the stock.
  5. Sauté the finely chopped onion, garlic and pepper in olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan for eight minutes. Add the peeled tomatoes and let the sofrito reduce for ten to fifteen minutes over moderate heat, stirring regularly.
  6. Add the squid, the diced white fish and the rice to the sofrito and pour the strained stock over it. Cook this for ten minutes over medium heat.
  7. Add the drained cockles and clams, the mussel meat and the prawns, and cook everything for another five to eight minutes.
  8. Stir in the chopped coriander or parsley and spoon the rice into deep bowls, with the liquid.

In the glass

Serving

Pour this manzanilla very cold, at 6 to 8 degrees according to the style page of the Consejo and 5 to 7 degrees according to its own manual; Barbadillo also gives 6 to 8 degrees for Solear. Preferably put the bottle in a bucket of ice and water, because this wine warms up quickly in the glass. Use a catavinos or white wine glass of about 200 millilitres, filled by a third. An opened manzanilla keeps well only briefly: about a week in the fridge with the bottle closed.

All about Solear Barbadillo ManzanillaBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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