I think Ryan would have liked it, if only because it has four meats: chicken thighs, shrimp, mussels, and chorizo. I like it because it cooks up well in just one pan, though it did take some labor.
Paella is a little picky when it comes to ingredients. It's important to have Arborio or similar rice, rather than white or brown, because it puffs up and softens--more like pasta. I went with a Spanish-style chorizo as recommended. It had great paprika flavor, but it didn't soften well, so I might go with another sausage next time. I included mussels, but couldn't find raw for a reasonable price, so I picked up some cooked ones on the half shell from the freezer section at the commissary. I meant to get raw shrimp, but accidentally picked up cooked, so I shortened the bake time at the end of the process. Still, the seafood part of the dish was a little rubbery. I am tempted to think that I hate mussels, but I can't be sure until I cook them the way I'm directed, instead of winging it the way I have in the past. Still, I might leave them out of the next dish. They cost too much for something I don't particularly enjoy.
I've noticed that most recipes in this book use at least one little twist of cooking technique. For this one, it was moving the paella from the stove top to the oven to cook the rice. It's more typical to complete the process completely on the stove. Because I cooked it in the oven, the crispy bottom rice, called "socarrat" (some people's favorite part of paella) was missing. To replace this missing element, I turned an eye of the stove on medium high, and gave it 1/4 turn every several minutes to brown the bottom. It wasn't perfect, but it was okay.
The finished product (complete with iPhone blur)
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