It’s very, very hot here and that means that my kitchen – thanks to the ever-warm AGA – has turned into a sauna and is to be avoided at all costs. We’re living on cold meats, cheeses and salads, together with very good Swiss bread….and leftovers of this…

Paella leftovers are the best leftovers ever. The flavours seem to mesh together even better after a day or two in the fridge.

My recipe doesn’t really exist…if ever I have a slapdash dish, then this is it. It has a bit of a basis from the paella in Delia Smith’s wonderful little book ‘One is Fun!‘ that I’ve been using for about the last 30 years, together with tips picked up from the Spanish mother of a boyfriend I had in my early 20s. It’s very much a moveable feast and as such is immensely satisfying and has never been known to go wrong. If you hate seafood, then omit it. This week I added some leftover trout that we had in the fridge and that seemed to fit in quite nicely!

Paella.

• 1 onion, chopped
• several cloves of garlic
• 1 red pepper sliced lengthwise
• chicken stock or even better fish or seafood stock – at least a litre (2 pints)
• saffron
• sliced chorizo sausage
• chicken thighs or breasts
• frozen mussels on the shell
• large prawns
• frozen peas
• tin of tomatoes
• carolina rice – a cup or two depending on the size of your pan

1. Fry the onion lightly in olive oil in a large frying pan together with the garlic and red pepper

2. In a separate pan fry the chicken, cutting it into chunky pieces if you are using chicken breasts

3. Add the rice and swirl it around in the oil to coat

4. Add the tomatoes and some stock so that all the rice and veg are lightly covered

5. Sprinkle over some saffron

6. Bring everything to a boil and then reduce heat so that it simmers

7. From this point forwards, don’t stir the pan, just shake it slightly to make sure nothing sticks on the bottom. If it does sick a little it isn’t the end of the world.

8. Gently push the chicken, prawns, mussels and chorizo into the mixture and continue to add stock as necessary, so that the mixture doesn’t dry out and the rice has plenty of liquid to absorb.

9. Sprinkle the frozen peas over the top, season and continue to shake and add stock until the rice is cooked

Enjoy with a nice glass of cold Spanish wine!

Helen

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2011 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.