Acclaimed Fine Dining Destination Tarsan i Jane Now Offers Take-Home Paella Kits

For those who want to make paella at home, but don’t want to put in a Gerard from ‘Wine Country”-level effort, one major Seattle restaurant offers a solution. The critically-acclaimed Frelard restaurant Tarsan i Jane is now selling take-home paella kits, with cooking instructions available online.

The first kit ($49 per diner) is a multi-course meal featuring paella, a puff pastry appetizer, kale Caesar salad, and a chamomile pudding with Meyer lemon curd and rhubarb compote for dessert. It’s meant to be fairly simple to put together: the rice is already pre-seasoned and cooked, and the calamari encebollada, spring garlic, and maitake mushrooms come individually packaged and ready as toppings. Home cooks just need to heat all the ingredients up in a pan and pour boiled water over it. Available to reserve through Tock.

For those already familiar with Tarsan i Jane’s influences, this should be a treat. Chef Perfecte Rocher is from Valencia, the birthplace of paella, and has made the dish a centerpiece of his popular Sunday brunches in the past. In addition to that entree, diners can order a few Spanish add-on snacks, such as Iberico ham, aged manchego cheese, and spicy pickles. There are also some gin and tonic kits to-go.

Closed since mid-March due to COVID-19 measures, Tarsan i Jane has tried to figure out a way to adjust to takeout and delivery, given that it’s known mostly for upscale tasting menus in an intimate setting. Up until now, both Rocher and his wife, Alia, who manages the restaurant, have kept busy with some home cooking tutorials on Instagram. So this seems to be the next logical step.

Tarsan i Jane also joins other spots around the city offering DIY meals for takeout, including the iconic Pho Bac Sup Shop (pho kits), Fremont’s excellent Japanese restaurant Kamonegi (ramen kits), and Atrium Kitchen (packaged goods from Pike Place Market with recipes and video cooking tutorials). This way, dishes that don’t typically travel well can hold up for the home kitchen.

• Tarsan i Jane [ESEA]
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