And at my house, I'm getting ready for the Pakistan/New Zealand T20, but my guests are getting ready for Christmas, a nice holiday where we exchange gifts and spend the day with family and lots of good food. I've even started decorating...see?
But for today, I promised Paella Valenciana, and I shall fulfill that promise. Most of the ingredients are the same, and as Spanish actor Antonio Banderas says, the trick is to cook the seafood in the same liquid that you'll be using to cook the rice. So you can either steam the seafood ahead of time and use that liquid, or you can use my method of using fish broth and cooking the seafood in the rice. I find that makes the paella even richer! Ok! Enough talk. Time for business!
Paella Valenciana
About 1 cup of sliced chorizo sausage (you can use spicy halal sausage if you like)
1 onion, finely diced
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, very finely diced or crushed to a paste
1/2 tomato, very finely diced
1/2 cup of shelled peas
1 juliened green pepper (capsicum)
1/4 teaspoon tumeric
a little bit of lal mirch (red chili powder) if desired
3 cups of rice*
(I use basmati rice, but traditionally arborio rice is used. If you use arborio, check the package to see what the water:rice ratio is.)
4.5 cups of fish broth
about 10 strands of saffron (do not use more or your dish will taste like bleach)
salt to taste
regular olive oil for cooking* (Do not use extra virgin olive oil, it will burn)
some clams
some mussels
some firm white fish, cut into cubes and no bones
some squid (calamari), cut into rings
some shrimp or prawns
some scallops
some lobster tails if you want to be really fancy
First, make your fish broth. If you don't have home-made broth, you can use store-bought broth if you like, or you can use the Knorr instant broth.
Soak the saffron strands in the broth. This will make the broth a yellowish/orange colour and will also gives the paella its' traditional earthy flavour.
Let the broth and saffron stand while you prepare everything else.
Heat up a little bit of olive oil in a large pan on medium-high heat, and brown the sausage.
Remove the sausage from the pan, and if there's a lot of oil and red coloured grease from the sausage left in the pan, remove most of it but leave some as this adds alot of flavour.
Fry the onion in the same pan with a bit of the leftover oil from the sausages. Once it's browned, add the garlic, and fry for a minute or so.
Add the tomato, turmeric and lal mirch, and fry until reduced.
Add the juliened green capsicum and peas, fry a few seconds.
Add the rice, and fry for about two or three minutes, being careful not to burn the rice.
Add the broth.
Add the sausage.
Stir for a few seconds to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Add salt at this point if it's necessary; but keep in mind that the liquid will reduce and concentrate the flavours.
Add your seafood at this point, except for the shrimp and lobster, because you don't want them to overcook.
Let the paella come to a boil, and let some of the liquid evaporate. Turn heat to very low and add the shrimp and lobster at this point. Continue cooking on very low heat until the rice is cooked through, about 20 or 25 minutes.
Before serving, fluff up the rice and arrange the lobster tails on the top so it looks really nice. Enjoy with your friends, and if you're a drinker of wine, a nice spanish rose from Catalunia will go particularily well with this dish.
Right! Have a good one, and I hope the cooking will keep you from getting bored while waiting for the cricket!
Happy Eating! Happy Cricket! Happy Happy!
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