Paella

Make sure the chicken cubes are quite dry. Start by frying the chorizo sausages in the pan with some oil. Once these are done to a nice brown colour, remove them from the pan and fry the chicken cubes. Do it in batches, otherwise you tend to get lots of fluid. Retain any such fluid if possible for use with the stock later. When the chicken is done, remove it all and keep warm.

Then start the onions. Once the onions are getting to a nice brown colour, add the chilies, coriander seeds and garlic. Fry these for thirty seconds, then add the chopped tomato. Once these are all going nicely, add the rice. The caramelised bits will have come off the bottom of the pan and into the sauces.

Fry the rice for a while to take up the flavours, then add the wine. Cook the lot until the wine reduces, somewhat, then add chicken stock a little bit at a time. Make sure the dish doesn’t burn. After the chicken stock you add water as required until the rice has swollen enough to be almost edible. The add the prawns and the mussels. They don’t need much cooking. Stir the dish to ensure that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Add the saffron, pepper and turmeric at this stage. Keep adding water as required, keeping the dish only just fluid.

Add the chicken and chorizo back to the dish. Test for saltiness, the dish may be too fresh still.

Add the chopped spring onions and the peas just before the dish is done. Allow the dish to rest for ten to fifteen minutes. Add the coriander and spring onion leaves as garnish. Arrange the dish nicely for serving. Cut some rings from a red bell pepper as further garnish.

This dish goes very well with a dry white wine.

Recipe reprinted with permission of The Hungry Sailor. To see more recipes, click here.