La, la, la! I don’t know whether I am more excited about my seafood paella or about the fact that as January has come to an end and February has started, I have officially been blogging for a month and I now have 2 months of posts in my archives, whoop!! I feel a sense of achievement in that.
This year I decided to cut down my tv watching at night after work (I wasn’t that addicted but there was still time there I could use) and whilst I have yoga some nights, I still found there are a few nights that I get just a little bit of time that I would prefer to use writing like this than watching something which deactivates my brain as opposed to activating it.
So, this weekend’s cooking. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do and I referred to a few recipe books as well as going on pinterest and I concluded that I had to do something with seafood. It is hot in Brisvegas and I didn’t want the oven on all weekend, so a gas stove top cooked paella seemed like the way to go. Not to mention, I knew that I could probably get some more mussels from the shop I got my ones from last weekend and I saw some big arse prawns that I just had to do something with, hence, I thought a paella it is. It would also give me an opportunity to play around with saffron which I haven’t done a lot before. I bought both the imitation and the strands as I hadn’t decided yet which was best so I thought ‘get both and decide through experimentation which I like best’.
So whilst, I don’t have a paella pan, like my mum does, (we used it at Christmas as it was quite handy), I do have an excellent sized frypan I use regularly so I decided that would have to do.
Here is the recipe for my Seafood Paella, I insist on the addition of the white wine to the recipe as it helps the flavours integrate and it’s the weekend, so a few drinks here and there help the world go round I say. Again, I went with Jamieson’s white that I had last weekend as it was nice, cold and a good match for the seafood.
This is a relatively easy dish to make. Be cautious to not overcook the seafood and you are away. I feel like the only things I need now are some sangria and a show where those women in the clappy shoes are dancing and the atmosphere is all rowdy and alive.
Fiesta Paella, delicious, if I do say so myself. My paella is also a no eat and drive one in the sense that I kept adding more and more white wine to ensure the rice was fully cooked as I had already added all the stock I had, the flavor it brought was delicious!
Paella ingredients
Olive oil
1 x large red onion diced (I never cook with white onions, I think red has a much better flavor)
Fresh chopped garlic
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup arborio rice
1 x chorizo sausage finely chopped
10 mussels
6 whopping great big prawns
White wine (amount depends on the night of the week!)
Pinch of paprika
Salt
Pepper
Paella method
- Put a splash of oil in the frypan and add the garlic, chorizo, paprika and red onion, fry off for a couple of minutes
- Add the stock and saffron threads.
- Add the rice
- Cook the rice in tasting as you go until it is still a tiny bit crunchy
- Add the white wine (I like a sav blanc when cooking)
- Add the mussels and cook for approximately 3 minutes with the lid on
- Add the prawns, by simply placing on top of the rice mixture.
- Put the lid back on and watch for the prawns to cook, as soon as they are fully orange in colour, turn the gas off and remove the lid.
- The final few minutes of the seafood cooking, will also allow the rice to finish cooking. Continue to add wine and taste.
- Use sliced lemon wedges to serve.
