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Traditional Paella Recipe |
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Click picture to enlarge
This mixed meat and seafood Paella recipe will give you the most
delicious meal ever. Truly a delight for your taste buds! This one has
been prepared in our kitchen using a normal frying pan.
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The best way to approach preparing Paella is
to make it a family and friends process. Invite them into the kitchen
while you are preparing and cooking it. Share a glass of wine and chat
with them as you cook. Make this Paella recipe
the centre of one of your evenings and enjoy an authentic Spanish meal.
COOK'S NOTES
Most of our paella recipes are prepared in the traditional manner but this
one uses the cooker rather than a barbecue and a frying pan instead of a
paella pan. The result is different from a traditional paella but if you
want a taster before buying some paella equipment than this is the recipe to
try.
KEY POINTS For
Traditional Paella Recipe
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Preparation Time: |
20 mins |
Cooking Time: |
1 hour 20 mins |
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How Difficult |
Difficult |
Freeze? |
No |
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Servings |
6 |
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INGREDIENTS
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2 tablespoons Olive oil |
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One 1.4 kg / 3lb chicken or
375g / ¾lb chicken meat (boned) |
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12 tiger prawns or
150g / 5oz prawns |
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6 oysters |
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350g / 12oz paella rice |
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1 litre / 1.8 pints chicken stock |
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150g / 5oz Spanish chorizo sausage |
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1 large onion |
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1 green or red pepper |
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2 cloves garlic |
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1 teaspoon paprika |
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¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper |
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½ teaspoon saffron strands |
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225g / 8oz tomatoes |
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75g / 3oz French beans |
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50g / 2oz peas (frozen or fresh) |
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1 lemon |
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Salt and pepper to taste |
Equipment
You will need a frying pan (skillet) or similar with a capacity of at
least 3 litres (5 pints), probably 3.5 litres (6 pints) is easier to cook
with. The base of the frying
pan needs to be at least 20cm (8 inches), 25 cm (10 inches) would be
better. This will allow you to cook the recipe for 6 servings.
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If you plan to chop up the chicken yourself, you will need a
very sharp and pretty hefty knife. See the picture on the left for
the minimum type of knife required.
Full instructions on how to chop up a chicken (with pictures, of
course), can be found by
clicking here. |
Substitute Ingredients
If you don't fancy the idea of chopping up a whole chicken, boned chicken
meat (such as breast or leg meat) will give nearly the same result. Alternatively, you can always ask
your butcher to chop up the chicken for you. Most butchers will charge
nothing or very little for this service and it will only take them a
couple of minutes.
Substitute the fish for almost anything in season. Filleted white fish
of any kind will be fine.
Substitute the vegetables for any that are in season. It's best to
stick to vegetables which will not fall apart during cooking (e.g. avoid
broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower etc). Peas, broad beans, carrots, French
beans, runner beans, mushrooms, sweet corn will all go very well with
this recipe.
We only use paella rice for our paella recipes, it produces firm rice
with grains that separate well. You can use Arborio rice but the results
will be a ceamier rice.
Saffron - so expensive and so controversial! We cooked one version of
this paella with no saffron and were unable to detect any difference in
the taste whatsoever. The yellowing effect on the rice was either
non-existent or minimal. The rice naturally yellowed from the chicken
juices and chicken stock. We've kept it in the ingredients above because
it is so traditional to this recipe, but we seriously doubt that it's
expense warrants the taste / colour difference unless you are cooking a
paella in the traditional manner
Health Considerations
Just two ingredients to be careful of. First the oysters -
click here to find out more
about oysters. The second is the other fish in the recipe. Make sure it
is well cooked or pre-cooked before adding. Just normal stuff really.
CLICK ANY PICTURE BELOW TO ENLARGE IT
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If you are using a whole
chicken, divide it into 8 parts (2 legs, 2 wings, 4 breast portions).
Click here for
detailed instructions. Pour the olive oil in the frying pan and
heat to a medium heat. Place half the chicken pieces in the pan and fry
them until the chicken on both sides is lightly browned. Place the browned
chicken on a plate and brown the remaining chicken pieces in the same way.
Remove the chicken pieces from the pan. Leave the olive oil in the pan.
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If you are using bacon rather than
Spanish chorizo sausage,
gently fry the bacon in the pan until cooked through. Cut the bacon into
small pieces. Leave the olive oil in the pan.
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Enlarge the picture on the
left to see the size of the chopped ingredients.
Cut the red peppers in half,
cut out the central white pith and seeds, chop the peppers into smallish
pieces.
Cut the cooked bacon or
Spanish chorizo sausage and onion into smallish pieces.
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Heat the olive oil in the frying pan to a medium heat, add the bacon /
Spanish chorizo sausage,
onion and peppers and fry for about 8 minutes until the ingredients are
softened.
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Peel, chop and crush the
garlic. If using whole tomatoes, chop them into (no need to skin them for
this recipe) smallish chunks. Add the salt, pepper, garlic,
tomatoes, cayenne, paprika, saffron, chicken pieces and chicken stock to
the pan. Heat the ingredients until they start to boil then turn down the
heat and simmer for 12 minutes. |
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Remove the chicken pieces
from the frying pan and pour the rice into the centre of the frying pan.
Stir the rice in well and
leave to simmer for another 12 minutes. Stir the mixture halfway through
to ensure the rice is fully mixed in. |
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Chop the French Beans. Add
them, the chicken pieces, the peas and the Tiger prawns to the paella.
Cook for another 20 minutes. Stir the paella every 5 minutes or so making
sure the Tiger prawns are cooked on both sides. If the paella
becomes on the dry side add water as required. |
Before serving, taste the rice to make sure it is fully cooked. Add any
extra salt and / or pepper to taste.
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Garnish the paella with the
lemon slices and oysters. Bring it to the table and serve onto warm
plates.
A great wine accompaniment for paella would be Rioja. Surprisingly,
lager or beer also goes very well with it. |
MORE PAELLA RECIPES
