Paella

Recipe for a traditional Spanish paella

The popular Spanish national dish paella comes from the Valencia region, and is a very aromatic rice dish with seafood, chicken and vegetables. You can vary the ingredients depending on your preference, e.g. with rabbit meat, squid, celery and tomatoes.

Ingredients (serves 6 - 8 people):

500 g rice (preferably paella rice)
4 chicken thighs or 400g of chicken
8 king prawns
200 g fish fillet (e.g. Monkfish, sea bream or sea bass)
500 g mussels in shell or 200 g of flesh
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow pepper
2 onions
1 fresh red chilli (or more, on taste)
3 cloves garlic
1 (bio) lemon
150 g fresh or frozen peas
1 liter chicken stock
200 ml white wine
0.25 g saffron threads
1 bunch of parsley
olive oil
Pepper , salt

Preparation:
Peel and devein shrimp, leaving tails intact; set aside. Bone chicken thighs, cut in half. Cut fish fillets into bite size pieces. Rinse the fresh mussels twice with cold water and remove damaged or open. Clean the onions and peppers and chop. Peel garlic and chop finely. Remove the seeds from the chilli and cut the pepper into thin strips. Wash, dry and finely chop the parsley leaves. Wash the lemon and cut with peel into small pieces.

Boil the mussels vigorously in about 1 liter of water. The shells should have opened after about 3 minutes of cooking, you should remove the unopened. The remaining drain in a colander.

In a large deep frying pan (paella pan, wok) heat three to four tablespoons of olive oil and fry the prawns briefly until they turn reddish. Then put aside for later. Then sauté the onion pieces in the oil shortly. Add the white wine. Then add the rice, garlic and chilli and mix well. Add some broth with soaked saffron and mix with the rice. If the liquid is almost evaporated, again pour new broth. Constantly repeat during cooking.

After about 15 minutes initially paprika and lemon pieces are added, after about 20 minutes, the peas and the fish fillet. The paella is ready when the rice is cooked but still has a little "bite".

In the meantime, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan and fry the salted chicken tighs until they are crispy.
When the rice is cooked mix the shrimp, chikcen and mussels to the rice, season if necessary. Allow the paello to steep for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle the paella with parsley and serve in the pan.

Photo credits: Fotolia - #83635698 - Spanische Paella © karepa