Paella for Christmas Dinner?


Here's one dish I would like to prepare for our Christmas dinner :-) Yuuum.

Paella is Spanish in origin and is traditionally cooked in a "paellera" which is a round flat pan with two handles. Paella is usually prepared using shellfish but can also be made with chicken or both. This flavorful dish is quite flexible because if you don’t have the exact ingredients you can make practical substitutions. Reminder: ensure that shellfish and/or mollusks are fresh.

If you are using the following seafood ingredients:
1. mussels should be washed thoroughly. Remove the beards. Open mollusks should be thrown away.
2. squid must be rubbed off the outer dark skin. Pull out the insides including the transparent back bone. Remove the eye and the tentacles and the ink. Cut into rings.
3. clams are washed thoroughly in water and then put in a bowl with some salt so that the sand comes out. Throw away those that are open.
4.prawns may be not be peeled. If you decide to peel, save the shells and boil in water for about ten minutes. Mash in a pestle and mortar. Save the liquid and use as one of the liquid ingredients.
5.crab claws must be fresh as well, and cleaned.

Paella ingredients include:

8 chicken legs
3 chorizo bilbao, cut into 1 inch pieces
4 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 1/2 cups medium grain rice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon saffron threads
4 cups chicken stock (or 2 cups chicken stock and 1 cup clam juice and 1 cup boiled shrimp juice)

1 pound shelled & cleaned prawns marinated in:
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup white wine

8 crab claws
1/4 pound fresh mussels
1/4 pound clams
½ cup sautéed squid rings
1 jar whole pimentos, drained
1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas, cooked and drained
2 lemons, quartered

In a large pan, brown the chicken legs and sausages in olive oil. Add chopped onions and garlic, brown. Remove meat mixture from pan and reserve. Add rice to pan and cook until slightly golden and transparent. Add salt and pepper. Bring stock to a boil. Dissolve saffron in the boiling stock. Cover rice with the stock and put the meat mixture back in the pan. Cover and cook slowly until the liquid is absorbed. That’s a good 30 minutes.

Marinate prawns for at least one hour. Remove from marinade before adding to paella pan after the liquid has absorbed into the rice.

Garnish paella with mussels, clams, pimentos, peas, crab and prawns. Cover and let the garnish ingredients steam for 20 minutes over a low fire (so the rice on the bottom does not burn). Serve with sliced quartered lemons.

Consult wikipedia to talk further about paella.
More paella recipes here and here.



The image, I just borrowed from the web:-)

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