La Paella Valenciana

Paella is a rice dish like pilaf but special to Spanish cooking and especially of the Catalugna region. Today there are a lot of paella variations in almost the whole world.

Although paella is common to be cooked with sea food it can also be cooked with meat, chicken and hunted meat.

I will describe here a recipe of paella with see food acording to my own taste. This is a recipe I have tried many times. Do not give up after your first try since cooking paella is not so easy. But if you keep trying you will soon understand that it is not so difficult and becoming a paella expert can only be achieved by trying it.

Paella can be consumed with some red wine in room temperature during the winter, or some good cold rose wine in the summer. It can actually be consumed alone as a dish since it usually contains a rich amount of ingredients or you can ad some good salad to your meal. During the summer and in open air, a friend and a good convesation is all that you need to enjoy your paella.

It may be difficult to believe it, but people in Spain cook paella at picnic time over wood fire. You can search for alot of paella recipe variations on the internet. In almost all of them the rating is towards difficult but believe me it is not so...

My paella recipe :

Ingredients (for 2-3 persons) :

  • 1-1,5 cups of rice
  • 2 chopped sweet green peppers
  • 1-2 chopped fleshy red peppers
  • 2 bg mature tomatoes chopped
  • some chopped pasley
  • 1/2 cup pees
  • finely chopped medium onion
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic chopped
  • 20-30 cleaned mussles
  • 15-20 pieces of calamary or squid
  • 20-30 small shrimps
  • salt
  • black pepper, red pepper, curry powder, some origano
  • some saffron
  • olive oil
  • some margarine
  • sun flower oil
  • water

NOTE:

  • My measure of "cup" above, is a glass you use to drink water, some 200 ml in volume
  • Although you can buy frozen mussles, calamary, shripms and also the vegetables, always prefer the fresh ones if possible. However, if you get the frozen ones they are ready to be used and in that case you may split them into three of four portions use one part and place the others in deep freeze for your later paella dishes.
  • Saffron gives paella a nice yellow color and some good flavor but do not overuse it. It is a very expensive spice.
  • A good paella can be cooked in a wide and flat soucepan and you should not use much of oil. I would recomend a non-stick soucepan or a frying-pan.
  • Rice should not be washed at all or should washed very little in order to have it cooked piece by piece. You should not stir it also while cooking.
  • Pees may need some extra water so put a little more water then twice the volume of rice when cooking. Rice should remain live not smashed after cooking it. So do not put to much water.

Preparation and Cooking:

Place the onion and some 2-3 spoons of water together with the mussles into the pan over low heat and cook for some minutes then remove them onto a plate and set it aside. Clean your pan.

Put a little sun flower oil and when it gets hot put the squids in. Cook them until they get a pale red colour. Stir them while cooking not to burn them. When they are cooked add the shrimps, stir for one or two minutes and turn the heat off. Take the shrimps and squids to besides the mussles but not the oil. Pour the oil and clean your pan.

Place some olive oil in your pan and a some margarine. Fry the peppers and garlic. Then add the rice and fry it for 7-8 minutes.

Put the tomatoes, parsley and safron and fry them for a few minutes. Add the pees and fry for one extra minute. Add the salt, spices, and water (a little more then twice the volume of rice) and lower the heat. When the rice is cooked turn off the heat. Flatten the surface of the rice put the cooked sea food over the rice and half-burry them into the rice. Do not stir the dish ! Leave the dish to brew. For this you can place a paper of cloth napkin over your pan and place the lid on top of it semi-open. Wait for 5-6 minutes and bring the pan to the table. Serve without stirring.

Bueno apetio.