Tuesday 25 June 2013

Seafood Paella by Maria Lim


Seafood Paella
Cuisine: Spanish
Traditionally paella is made on a Sunday because women needed a day off from cooking, so paella is usually made by the man

Ingredients

3 tbsp of olive Oil (if cooking for less people then less oil)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, chopped
1 large tomato, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
6 – 8 large prawns (depending on the size of your pan)
8 – 12 mussels (depending on the size of your pan)
1 flower crab/blue swimmer (optional)
200g calamari, diced (usually I opt out)
300 g of arborio rice (Arborio is an Italian short-grain rice). Or look for Spanish Calasparra rice
750ml of fish stock from cube or powder (I used home made concentrated veg stock, cos I find fish stock very salty)

10 strings of saffron – Grind the saffron thread with a spoon (or use mortar and pestle) until it break up some fine powder. It helps to distribute it through the paella evenly giving a better colour and flavour to the finished dish.
2 tsp of smoked paprika

Some green peas or mixed peas (I used from frozen packet)
1/3 chopped English parsley
Some optional toppings (that is if you are not making seafood paella):
Sliced Chorizo
300g chicken breast fillet, diced

Preparation
1. Heat oil in paella pan over medium heat. Add onion, capsicum, tomato, garlic. Add chicken and calamari.
2. Add rice and stir for 1 minute. Stir in stock, saffron and paprika
3. When the stock is boiling and rice grains begin to swell, add prawns. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the stock has reduced and rice has begun to swell. Push the mussels into the rice and cook until the shells open.
4. Finally add the peas and parsley and leave it for five more minutes on low heat.

Tips:
The perfect time to add the seafood to paella is when enough of the stock has been absorbed to allow the rice to be seen.DO NOT stir the paella during main cooking!




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