The Rain in Spain...

 Streets of Barcelona and Gaudi's beautiful Sagrada Familia

Since I've been harping on almost exclusively about films lately, I thought I'd do something a bit different. One of my other loves is food and cooking, but lately I've been a bit on the slack side (with that all-too-common excuse of "I'm too busy") and haven't been cooking a whole lot. I eat almost everything (minus coriander, bananas and chicken; the latter due to an episode of Dominos' "funky chicken") and will probably try (almost) everything once - although the whole eating insects business has always puzzled me somewhat.

 Barcelona market

So anywho, I thought I'd share with you all, one of my staple dishes that is pretty much foolproof and also originates from one of my favourite countries to visit (and plus I've just started taking Spanish lessons so I'm channelling some Spanishness). Its a one pan wonder that's perfect when you have lots of mouths to feed and it always looks spectacular with its vibrant colours.

 Valencia - the birthplace of the paella

Seafood Paella

Ingredients
2 cups arborio rice
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
4 chorizo sausages
200g diced chicken/pork/lamb (any meat really)
100g prawns
12 mussels
2 tomatoes
1 spring onion
1 pepper (any colour, but brighter the better)
1/2 cup peas
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp thyme
1/2 tsp saffron
1 bunch parsely
1 lime

1. If you have a paella pan then great, but I use a big deep frying pan and that still works fine. Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry off in a pan with olive oil until it slightly colours. Add the chorizo and diced meat, season and brown.
2. Add the rice dry along with the paprika, thyme salt and pepper, and fry until the rice starts to pop a bit. I cook the rice for ages, I find it gives the rice more bite when its cooked.
3. Add the stock - it should cover the contents of the pan completely. If it starts to look dry, you can add more water/stock as you go. Add the saffron and give it gentle stir and cover until the water is absorbed.
4. Once the rice looks cooked, lay the mussels on top of the rice. I usually put them in a circular pattern fanned out, so it looks like a big flower. Covered, they should take about 10 minutes. Halfway through scatter the prawns, chopped tomatoes, peas and spring onion all over and cover until the prawns are cooked.
5. Serve in the pan sprinkled with load of chopped parsely and a few wedges of lime.

 

 Buen Provecho!