The chef with an industrial torch and the paella on fire

The Cook Jordi Garrido He appears wearing a rascal or ukulele musician’s hat, an apron and safety glasses. Sitting on the terrace of the restaurant Soca-rel under a hurdle, in Llofriu, Baix Empordà, where Mas Pla is and where he died Josep Pla and where he was buried and where some Tramontana nights you can smell his sting cigarettes, I have heard the hiss of an industrial torch several times: fuuuuu-fuuuu-fuuuuu.

To the left of the entrance to the dining room are the grills on which Jordi and Joey Allas Pays, Born in the Philippines and also shielded behind a pair of goggles, they prepare paellas. “The glasses are for smoke & rdquor ;, says Jordi.

Seeing him, I tell him that he remembers the septuagenarian Jay Fai, dressed in Bangkok with ski goggles to protect herself from the wok in which she fries applauded crab omelettes, that got him a Michelin star. Alert with the swings of the guide, because in Singapore another street stall, the Hawker Chan, for his lacquered chicken with noodles and in September he got the michelinazo guitar. Why? For the same reasons it was given to him: it is not known.

I return to Soca-rel and to the fuuuuu-fuuuu-fuuuuu and at giant fly glasses from Jordi and Joey. “Let no one think that we cook with a blowtorch. We use it to light the branches. The torch does not touch the food & rdquor ;, says the chef from Xàtiva transplanted to the Empordà.

In a field he stores the sheaves provided by nearby vineyards as a provision for the winter. The vine gives a lively, fast, fierce flame. A red and yellow sheet and all the colors of hell that complicate the procedure on it.

Then he will show me his soot-painted hands. That is why they take care of the eyes, to avoid an unwanted black.

The ‘minigranism’

My first meeting with Jordi was in Portal Fosc, in Xàtiva, where on a rainy night in 2012, the chef Paco Morales placeholder image took me to dinner. Capricious, after a cooking exhibition passed by the vegetable gaze, with the presence of an unforgettable beet, I asked him for a midnight paella, which came with chicken and meatballs. So for consistency with the rice connection, I insist on that dish in Soca-rel, which Jordi announces with an article: ‘The Valencian paella’.

Valencian restaurant paella, that is, with broth and vine shoots, with a fine layer of grains, according to that minimalism or ‘minigranism’ that is imposed.

Only 12 minutes on the flare (“and from minute one should boil & rdquor;), so the chicken has been boneless and vacuum-cooked, the stir-fry is done and the broth, with roasted chicken and rabbit bones, is ready.

At the moment the rabbit, the snails, the green bean and the ‘garrofó’ are sautéed and the grass is fried, Bay variety of L’Estany de Pals.

Soca-rel is “barraca kitchen & rdquor ;, a name that refers to the Valencian barracks and the ‘Empordaneses’, a spartan work place, without comforts but that allows a respite for the meeting, for the revelry and for the stews that smell of charcoal.

Jordi takes the restaurant illusion of the party after the fatigue of work.

I tried a dish that is no longer on the menu and it’s a shame: crispy pork mask, boiled and on the grill and then topped with cilantro, spring onion, chili peppers, basil, minced ginger, lime and lemon & mldr; The fat wrapped in acidities.

It doesn’t seem like it but the pretty face of the pig it has to do with paella. In 2017, Jordi traveled for almost a year in Asia to loosen his mind and leave behind a ruin.

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He carried a backpack and a ‘paelló’ on his back: he exchanged rice dishes for recipes. In Chengdu, China, he was greeted with the nose, which he reverted to Soca-rel.

Paella facilitates dialogue in such a way that a Chinese preparation naturally jumped into the barraca kitchen. I don’t know if the ‘paelló’ that Jordi carried for 11 months could travel in the cabin with a violin deal. Both are instruments that need a good interpreter.