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Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 0 Minutes |
Ready In: 30 Minutes Servings: 4 |
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This is the easiest way to cook a Spanish mixed paella and still can call it paella. The ingredients are also easy to find everywhere. This rice recipe is cooked in a paella -hence its name- which is a round and flat steel or iron pan with two handles. If you don't have a paella use a large pan (30-35 cms. diameter per 4-6 servings approx.). The amounts are for fresh ingredients but you can also use canned and/or frozen ones. Ingredients:
500 g rice (short-grain is preferred but long-grain rice is less difficult to get sticky and or doughy) |
200 g squid, cut in stripes |
200 g mussels |
200 g clams |
400 g prawns or 400 g norway lobsters or 400 g king prawns |
200 g chicken (any part, boneless or not) |
400 g mixed vegetables (artichocke hearts, fresh fava beans, peas, chopped greenbeans and carrots) |
1 small white onion, finely chopped |
2 tomatoes, juicy an mature, finely chopped or 100 ml tomato sauce |
1 small red pepper, chopped |
1 garlic |
1/2 lemon |
4 -6 tablespoons olive oil or 4 -6 tablespoons sunflower oil |
fish stock granules (for 1 litre stock) or instant chicken bouillon granules (for 1 litre stock) |
1 teaspoon yellow food coloring or 1 teaspoon powdered saffron |
salt |
parsley |
Directions:
1. Boil 2 cups of water with salt and cook the clams and the mussels until they are open. If any of them are still closed, remove them. Boil in the same water the remaining sea food for a couple of minutes. Drain the liquid and set aside for the fish stock.
2. Peel the prawns, king prawns and/or Norway lobster leaving some of them unpeeled for decoration.
3. Prepare 1 litre fish stock using the water we set aside before, fish/ chicken powdered stock (or stock cubes) and the prawn skins. Add the yellow food colouring. Drain and set aside.
4. Put the frying pan/ paella onto heat with 2-4 tablespoons olive oil. Fry on a heavy fire the sliced chicken until slightly brown but not completely cooked. Set aside.
5. Do the same with the squid stripes.
6. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and the onion finely chopped. When the chopped onion is transparent, add the red pepper finely chopped and cook until tender.
7. Now add the tomatoes finely chopped and cook for 10 minutes approximately until you have a thick tomato sauce, or just add the 100 cl. tomato sauce.
8. Peel the garlic and smash it with some parsley until you get a paste.
9. Add 1 lt. fish stock, the garlic and parsley paste and the remaining vegetables to the frying pan with the thick sauce and let it simmer. The resulting soup must have a salty taste as the rice will absorb much of the salt and flavour. Cook for 10 minutes or until vegetables are al dente .
10. Now add the rice to the soup (you can choose to rinse it in order to remove some starch before). Mix all ingredients with a wooden spoon. Put fire higher for 7-10 minutes.
11. Add the fish, sea food and chicken and set a low fire for another 5-10 minutes. This part of the cooking is quite important as you may need to add some boiling water when necessary. It is advisable not to stir the ingredients to avoid breaking the rice grains and paella becoming sticky. You are only allowed to shake gently the pan in this part of the process.
12. After this time, if rice is not yet cooked and it has little water, cover the paella with aluminium paper and let it cook for 2 minutes more or so. Anyway, it is always preferable a paella with some liquid than overcooked.
13. Uncover the paella, decorate with the unpeeled king prawns and/or Norway lobsters and let the rice rest for at least 5 minutes so it absorbs the remaining water.
14. Serve hot with a lemon slice per serving.
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