Paella

It's a quintessential Spanish dish - Paella.  The dish originated around Valencia (where I took the picture in the header), a fabulous city on the Mediterranean that we visited last year.  I know I shouldn't use Wikipedia so much, but I like this quote: 

"Many non-Spaniards view paella as Spain's national dish, but most Spaniards consider it to be a regional Valencian dish. Valencians, in turn, regard paella as one of their identifying symbols."

Yesterday I was invited to go to a "cooking class" to learn how to make paella.  I don't know about you, but I don't picture too many cooking classes in someone's backyard, sitting near a pool, enjoying amazing weather, and mostly chatting with new friends to be too tough of a cooking class.  I met a lot of really fantastic women (there were almost 20 of us!) and Richard, our chef, did a fabulous job.

Enjoy!

Richard was kind enough to share his recipe - I'm not sure when I'll be attempting it, so let me know if you try to make it!!

Paella Ciego (Blind Paella) For 15 people!

1 cup onions finely chopped

1 clove garlic finely cut

1 red pepper cut into small cubes

1 cup green beans

1 cup small peas

1 spicy chorizo cut into small cubes

I package of mushrooms (remove stalks and cut stalks into small pieces)

Juice from a lemon/or 2 limes

1 package of Paella spices (4-5 sachets)

1-2 small packages of tomato frito

500 grams of Langostino Crudo (fresh prawns)

6 Mussels

Lots of olive oil

5 cups of rice

6 stock cubes

Stock (always use 2 parts stock to 1 part rice):

• Peel prawns
• Wash/clean shells
• Fry shells in olive oil with clove garlic and 4 bay leaves until red (2 mins)
• Add 11 cups of water
• Add 5-6 stock cubes
• Boil for 60 mins
• Strain out shells and keep the stock

(A good stock is one of the most important means to a good paella)

Making the Paella (in a large levelled paella pan)

• Add plenty of olive oil
• Fry onions and garlic 2-3 mins
• Add chicken and brown well on both sides
• As chicken is browning…

-         Add red pepper

-         Add mushrooms and cut up stalks

-         Add beans

• When chicken is well browned and vegetables are cooked move to the edge
• Put rice in the middle
• Pour on lemon/lime juice
• Pour on tomato frito
• Add paella spices (mainly for colouring)
• Mix together (the lemon/lime juice stops rice sticking)
• Mix with paella pan contents and allow rice to be well coated in oil
• Spread out evenly in the pan
• Add stock (note time, paella needs 20 mins from this point to cook!)
• Sprinkle peas on top
• Lay out prawns on top
• Lay out mussels on top
• Sprinkle chorizo on top
• Keep heat well up (some burning of the rice is desired)
• When stock is absorbed (after 20 mins) turn off heat
• Let it sit for 10 mins then enjoy

(On a side note, I attempted to load these images as one large, long collage, but I could never get it to be the full width of the post.  Does anyone know why this would happen?  So, I ended up loading it in 4 chunks, which I don't like the look of as much, but everything would be full size then, though it didn't have the spacing I wanted.  Any suggestions?)