The special “soupy rice” with softshell crab Jaleo is serving up for the Paella Festival. Photo by Rebecca Cooper

In case you haven’t been getting your paella fix lately, or you’ve been bored by the same-old, same-old, never fear: Jaleo to the rescue with the 2010 Paella Festival.

The restaurant has brought in María José San Román, the self-dubbed “queen of saffron,” as the guest chef for this year’s festival, and the special rotating paellas she created are potent with ample doses of her signature ingredient. San Román, a chef and restaurateur who admits to having an obsession with the scarlet-threaded spice, has spent years studying saffron, testing out the best ways to add it to her dishes, and working to cultivate it with researchers from the University de Castilla La Mancha in Spain and the Spanish saffron industry.

She also brought as much of her own secret stash as she could carry to D.C. for the festival, and has trained the Jaleo team to add the vibrant ingredient in her carefully devised manner. For paella, saffron is added only after it is steeped in water at exactly 65°C for four hours; this, she insists, is the best way to extract the rich color and flavor from the tiny threads.

At Monday’s opening party for the festival, there was certainly no artificially colored paella to be found. Jaleo chefs were serving up a vegetarian spring vegetable paella with wild mushrooms, a “paella” made with vermicelli noodles and lobster, and a Valencian specialty, arroz caldozo, or “soupy rice.”

The arroz caldozo was a standout, with rice cooked in a briny, saffron-laced seafood broth and dotted with big chunks of softshell crab. The special paellas will be available for anywhere between $34 and $48, depending on market prices, at all three Jaleo locations until June 20.