20-Jun-20: Time to have some winter warmers with Paella…
We started this Sat evening with home made Negronis. Have started to enjoy these when out and thought when doing the supermarket shopping, with an “Uncle Dan’s” next door, “hmmmm I wonder how I’d go with making them myself ????”. So bought the ingredients, including the best Vermouth I could find and had a crack.
The result was Super YUUMMM – Happy “liquid” Soul Food moment but a little trick, given they pack a punch, was to soften them with a splash of Soda… The Negroni’s were an aperitif whilst sorting out entrée.
To keep us going whilst the Paella cooked, we enjoyed some Jamon, sourced from one of our local delis, good tasty cheese and marinated warm olives.
The olives were marinated for an hr or so (if you can do it overnight, it really enhances the flavour) in good quality olive oil, cinnamon stick and strips of orange zest and then warmed in a fry pan for a few minutes.
For the Paella, I use a base recipe and adjsuted accordingly. This one has chicken, chorizo and mushrooms… It also uses a spice mix from Screaming Seeds called Smokey Tomatino but they also have an amazing Paella Mix as well that is worth a try…
The other key is trying to use good paella rice – it is worth hunting around to find actual paella rice as it does make a difference. I use about 1 cup for two which will give some left overs (probably makes enough for 4 really)
My recipe is one of my usual “made by feel” type recipes, so if you need something more specific, look one up to guide you more precisely, if not confident. To start with you will need:
- 1 cup paella rice
- 1 leek
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 brown onion
- 4 chicken thigh cutlets cut in half with skin on if possible – using chicken with the bone in adds to the flavour but if you can’t be bothered with the bone, use thigh fillets but still chop in half
- 1 chorizo with skin off and sliced
- 2 tbs of Smokey Tomatino
- 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
- 3-4 sprigs of thyme
- 2-3 bay leaves
- 8-10 button mushrooms sliced (or about 1/2 punnet)
- About 400 grams of passata or chopped tomato and
- 1-2 cups of chicken stock – play by ear as to how it looks in the pan
- Decent splash of medium dry sherry
Using a splash of olive oil, heat the paella pan and brown the chicken, take out and set aside
Add some extra olive oil and have the paella pan on low heat, brown the leek, onion, chorizo and garlic. Once soft, add in the Smokey Tomatino, paprika, thyme and bay leaves and stir around. Then add the paella rice and coat, followed by the sherry, passata and add back in the chicken and sliced mushrooms. Give it just a little mix around. Add in 1 cup of stock and then leave it to simmer gently for about 30 minutes.
Keep an eye on it and if it looks like it is drying out too much then add more stock. PLEASE DONT STIR IT – you want the crust to form on the bottom – not burnt, just crusty…
At about 30 minutes, add in some frozen peas and maybe a little more stock if looking a bit dry and leave for about another 5 minutes for the peas to cook.
Voila – Happy Spanish Fiesta Soul Food Moment…
