Paella

Paella!

A nice weekend at Cronulla by the ocean led me to cook a seafood inspired Paella.
Daniel and I walked down to the local seafood shop 'Michael's' and purchased fresh prawns and mussels. Exciting!

I had already purchased some Saffron threads last week from the Markets in chinatown and I had brought with me the other ingredients so later in the day the cooking began.

I have been doing some research on Spanish Valencian cusine and I found one rule about Paella that I though I must follow; you MUST make your own stock. So, I started that as soon as I got home so I could warm up the house with lovely aromas and start creating the most delicious flavoursome stock for my Paella. The rest of the night went beautifully.......

Mixed Seafood Paella 'Paella Mixta'
Rachel's Recipie
Ingredients:
For Stock: Seafood, chicken drumsticks, onions, garlic, tomato, celery, carrot, parsley, bay leaves. NB: Extras I added in: 1 star anise, 1 chilli, salt and pepper.
1 cup Calasparra Paella Rice
4 cloves garlic
1/2 brown onion
1 bunch parsely
1 chicken breast, cut in strips
6 prawns uncooked, shelled, de-headed
6 mussels
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch saffron threads
1 tsp smokey paprika
Green beans
1/2 Red Pepper chopped in small strips
1/2 Green Pepper chopped in small strips
4 Sweet corn halved
1 Carrot sliced in thin strips
2 medium very ripe truss tomatoes
4 very small ripe truss tomatoes

The Stock
Method:

1. Fill a saucepan with 2L of water
2. Add ingredients and simmer for a few hours. It may reduce down to less than the required amount of stock for the Paella so you will need to top it up occasionally if you dont use a lid.

Garnish Preparation:
Place the small truss tomatoes and Chilli Peppers in garlic and olive oil and roast in a medium oven while cooking the Paella.
Paella Mixta
Method:
1.Heat olive oil in a paellera.
2. Sear chicken strips with chopped onion and some smokey paprika
3. Add prawns and sear with chicken
4. Add garlic and sauté until brown.
5. Add chopped tomatoes and sauté.
6. Add chopped bell peppers, sweet corn, a few green beans and finely sliced carrots. Sauté until vegetables are tender.

7. Add rice. Braise rice until covered with sofrito*.
8. Add broth in ladlefuls until almost covering mixture. Add cumin seeds.
9. Add salt to taste.
10. Add saffron
11. Simmer until rice is almost cooked.
12. Place mussels and green beans over top of Paella.
13. Continue simmering until rice is finished cooking.
14. Garnish with roasted truss tomatoes, red chilli peppers and parsley .

* Sofrito is the Spanish word for a well cooked and fragrant sauce that is usually sauteed onions, garlic and tomatoes.




Delicious.