Main events, RecipesDave EwingApril 02, 2021Rice, seafood, Chorizo

Primavera Paella

Main events, RecipesDave EwingApril 02, 2021Rice, seafood, Chorizo

As the nights finally recede against daylight hours (in the UK, at least), we’re still unable to plan much in the way of travel to any of our favourite foreign destinations. So, perhaps this recipe for a light and easy seafood and chorizo paella will bring back some happy memories of bygone easy travel days, eating tasty local food as the sun sets over the Med (or Atlantic for those of us holidaying in the Canaries).

Paprika and turmeric are the main spices here, and as usual, you can add as much or as little chilli as you like to match your own taste buds. There’s also a bit of garlic puree thrown in. The recipe below easily serves four and should be ready within half an hour from the first chop.

Step 1 - Get out that chopping board

I don’t assemble this paella in the traditional way. That falls foul of my Risotto Rule - too much fiddling around, adding small ladles of water whilst continually moving rice around in the pan to ensure it doesn’t stick. Instead I use a low heat and gaps between chopping the ingredients to allow each ingredient time to soften. I then cook the rice separately and combine towards the end. No drop in flavour depth has been reported by those I’ve cooked it for. However, I do stick with the traditional flat frying pan. Pop that onto a low-medium heat (or 5/10 for those cooking on electric) and throw in a decent knob of butter (20g is plenty) and a good glug or two of olive oil.

While the butter melts and the oil warms through, get your large white onion topped and tailed, chopped into quarters, and then cut on the vertical to create lots of lovely crescent-shaped onion pieces. Pop ‘em into the pan and give them a good stir to get them coated in the butter and oil mix.

Step 2 - More chopping

Whilst the onion slowly softens, take your red pepper and chop the bottom third of it off. This way, you can see where the vertical white flesh is inside the pepper and deftly weave your knife to avoid spilling a ton of the fiddly yellow seeds all over your chopping board, worktop and kitchen floor. Cut the flesh into chunks, and then run the knife through each chunk vertically to create more nice crescent-shaped pieces. Pop all of these into the pan with the softening onions, and give it all a good stir to ensure everything is coated.

Next up on the chopping board is your chorizo. For a 4-person serving I use around half of a standard supermarket chorizo. Chop this on the angle, creating chunky half-moon shapes that will not fry to a crisp in the pan, but instead release some of their aromatic oils and still leave a juicy morsel to chew on in the finished dish. When the chorizo is chopped, no surprise, into the pan it goes and give everything another good stir.

Step 3 - Rice o’clock

Tidy away your chopping board and veggie leftovers, and get the rice on the go. I use a traditional short grain paella rice here - easy to cook and ready in about 12 minutes. Fill a saucepan two thirds full of water and bring to the boil. Pop in the rice, giving it a stir so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom. Return to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, giving the rice a stir every time you do the same to the ingredients in the frying pan.

Top tip: About half way through the rice cooking time, I add a vegetable stock cube to ensure the rice doesn’t fall behind in the flavour stakes. Back at the frying pan, I’ll also pop in the frozen peas, followed by another stir for both pan and pot. The melting ice from the frozen peas will allow you to loosen and gather up any sticky caramelised onion from the base of the pan.

Next up it’s the garlic puree, paprika (big paprika fans here) and chilli into the frying pan and yes, give it all a stir followed by another stir of the simmering rice.

Step 4 - on the home straight

Use the second half of your rice cooking time to set the table, warm the plates, tell your flatmate to hurry up and get out of the shower - whatever you’ve found makes mealtimes run more smoothly for all concerned.

Taste the rice to check it is cooked. The combination of the stock cube and the paella rice tends to make for an opaque rice water so it’s best to take a forkful out and test by bite rather than just by eye. Remove the saucepan from the heat but leave the rice in the water. Pop the mussels and prawns into the frying pan and stir - these really just need heating through which is why they’re only added towards the end.

Next add the turmeric. Turmeric acts like flour so your previously sloppy mix (depending on the amount of ice on those frozen peas) will dry up quite quickly as you mix it in. Don’t panic - just add a little bit of the rice water into the pan to keep things moving around nicely. Then begin to add the rice direct from the pot to the pan. I use a slotted ladle for this, allowing the majority of rice water to drain away.

Top tip: You’re looking to create a creamy or glossy texture for the paella. Mix in a ladle or two of rice with the other ingredients in the pan and it will quickly take on that satisfying golden hue from the turmeric. Continue until all of the rice is out of the pot and then mix everything up in the pan until all the ingredients are well combined.

Step 5 - Serve!

Then it’s a simple matter of doling out the requested portion sizes on the previously warmed plates. Enjoy, and leave all the cleaning up until after you’ve eaten.