As requested by Gwen from Florida, here is the paella recipe that we use.
This is our version, and of course there are many, including the traditional Valencia dish which uses rabbit.
These quantities are sufficient to serve 10 people (50cm paella pan) so half the ingredients if you are making this at home for the family, typically we make it at the weekends when we have friends over.
Ingredients:
Olive oil
2 large onions
6 cloves of garlic
1kg short grain rice or paella rice
2 red peppers
6 large tomatoes
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs thyme
a good pinch of saffron stamens – we like to steep it in warm milk so the colour forms early
fish stock
800g fish cubed and squid rings
1kg frozen peas
1kg mussels / clams or similar
500g uncooked prawns in their shells
salt and pepper
Method:
Prepare all of your ingredients, finely chop the onions and garlic, slice the peppers, skin and chop the tomatoes.
Heat olive oil in the paella pan (50cm) add the finely chopped garlic and fry until golden, add the chopped onion and rice and stir around the pan until its all covered with the oil, then season with salt and pepper. Add the sliced peppers and skinned and chopped tomatoes, fish and squid rings, and the seasoning of bay leaves, thyme and saffron (stamens not powder) and cover this with the fish stock, cook until almost all the liquid has been absorbed.
Now add the rest of your ingredients to decorate the top – prawns, mussels, clams and frozen peas. Cooking time should be just under 1 hour, the moisture should be absorbed, sticky around the edges, the prawns pink and the shellfish open – discard any that haven’t opened during cooking.
Now turn the heat off and cover your paella with foil – leave to stand for at least 10 minutes and serve with wedges of lemon, sprinkled with chopped parsley and a bottle or two of a Lanzarote Malvasía white.
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