Paella

I made paella! I made paella! From scratch!!! Since Jayna’s tweet about making paella, I’ve wanted to try my hand at this. I actually think the paella I made tastes better than restaurant paellas. I think it’s because it was made fresh - it takes about 1 1/2 hour from scratch - and there’s no way a restaurant can make it from scratch! My paella had chicken, chorizo, salmon, prawns, roasted red pepper and instead of peas (I hate peas) I used edamame beans. And risotto rice because there wasn’t any paella rice at the supermarket.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Brown the chicken. Then add the chorizo and continue cooking till the chroizo is browned and cooked through. When the chicken and chorizo are cooked, remove and drain on a paper towel. There should be oil left over in the pan.

Separately, blanch the peas (or in this case I used edamame).

Cut the pepper into strips, drizzle with olive oil and stick them in an oven till cooked and soft. Don’t add any salt to this as you want the peppers sticky and sweet. Peppers tend to shrink as you cook them. For this dish, I used two.

With the oil left over from the chicken and chorizo, saute the onions and garlic until the onions are soft and translucent. Add 1 can of chopped tomatoes in their juices to the pan and simmer till most of the liquid has evaporated and you get a thick tomatoey paste. Add 1.25L of chicken stock, dry white wine, 1 teaspoon of paprika, 2 pinches of toasted and crumbled saffron threads, and 300ml of dry white wine (you can use more if you want, I did). And I added in 2 bay leaves.

Bring the tomato broth to a boil and further season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add a packet (500g) of paella rice (I used risotto because there wasn’t any paella rice at the supermarket) to the tomato broth so that the rice sinks to the bottom evenly over the whole pan. Boil on high heat from 10 minutes.

Layer the cooked chicken and chorizo pieces over the rice, making sure there is enough tomato broth to cover the chicken and chorizo. Bring this to a boil and then bring it down to a simmer for another 10-12 minutes.

Add the remainder of the ingredients. Here I used salmon (pre-cooked) and prawns (raw). You could use any shellfish or seafood that you like, for example squid rings or mussels. MAke sure any uncooked ingredients are covered under the simmering broth. If there isn’t enough broth, add some water. Cook till all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. The rice should form a crust at the base of the pan. If this hasn’t happened yet, continue cooking and check. Add the peas and peppers.

Et voila!

Original recipe from Williams Sonoma “Essentials of Mediterranean Cooking”