Seafood Paella (Traditional Spanish Recipe) and an Award
Paella is a traditional Spanish dish. But it tastes almost like Indian Biryani. The speciality of paella is its used to cook in a special paella pan which is a large, shallow, flat pan.
From Wikipedia,
Paella is a typical Valencian rice dish from Spain. The origin of the name paella is in the Valencian for frying pan. This word in turn derives from Latin patella and is akin to French poêle, Italian padella, Old Spanish padilla and New Mexican Spanish Paella. Paella is usually garnished with vegetables and meat or seafood. The three key ingredients are rice , saffron, and olive oil. An important part of the flavor comes from the addition of saffron and the sofrito, or the combination of tomatoes, and garlic (and sometimes peppers).
if you are a vegan one can substitute vegetables instead of meat . One of my friend used to talk about this dish and said its tastes so like Fish biriyani . So, I wanted to try this at home and made this for a party. Everyone loved it and I was a happy camper.
Ingredients:
- Basmati Rice or Long Grain rice : 2cups
- Olive oil : 1/4 cup
- Tomato : 1
- Garlic Cloves : 3 (Minced)
- Shallots or Pearl onions : 1/4 cup
- Bay leaves : 2
- Saffron Powder : 1/2 tsp
- Dry white wine : 1/2 cup
- salt : 1 tsp
- Chicken Stock : 4 cups
- Chicken : 1/2 cup (cut into cube sized)
- Shrimp : 1/2 cup (deveined and halved lengthwise)
- fish : 3 tbsp ( cut in to cube sized)
- lemon : 1 ( halved)
- Extra Virgin Olive oil : 1 tbsp (optional)
Method Of Preparation :
- Preheat the oven in to 425 Degree F . Heat 1/4 cup of Olive oil in a flat pan over medium heat . ( traditionally it is used to cook in a paella pan and bake the dish in the oven using that pan but if you don’t find one no worries you can just use a regular pan and transfer it in to a oven safe dish and bake it.)
- Now add the shallots or pearl onion into it and saute for 2 minutes.
- And add the garlic , bay leaves and saute until the shallots or pearl onions are tender and translucent fry them about 1 minute.
- Now sprinkle the saffron powder over the mixture and saute it for another 1 minute.
- Add the basmati rice ( washed and drained) and gently fry them so it is coated with oil (Make sure you didn’t break the rice) .
- Stir it in the wine and salt and warm chicken stock (Boil the chicken stock in a small pan when its warm transfer it in to this) .
- Now slowly increase heat from simmer to high and remove from heat.
- Transfer this in to a flat oven safe dish coated with olive oil .
- Sprinkle tomatoes over the rice mixture. And Nestle the shrimp , fish and chicken into it.
- carefully transfer the pan and bake paella uncovered for about 35 minutes or till the rice is tender and the seafood is cooked.
- After that remove paella from the oven.
- Sprinkle with chopped parsley or cilantro and sprinkle some extra virgin olive oil ( which is optional) .
- Squeeze the lemon juice over the paella and serve hot.
Uma Of Teluguruchi Passed this wonderful award to us. Thanks a ton Uma for passing this awesome award to us. Its really very sweet of you.
And we would like to pass this to some of our good friends .
- Lothi of Naturalremediesathome .
- Shri of EminentLife .
- Aartee of Nalabhagam .
Note:
As some of our friends mentioned in the comments basmati rice is not used in the traditional recipe instead they use long grain rice. Its just something I forgot to mention in the first place. Thanks cham and kalai for the reminder.
19 Comments
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Shriya,though i couldn’t comment on this dish,the picture looks great.So obviously,the dish should taste good.Thanks for passing the award to me.
Wow! i always thought that paella was a difficult dish to make and you make it look more appealing than the restaurant! good work yaar, am surely gonna try it out sometime. Thanx for sharing!
Looks so inviting ur paella, but they don’t use basmati rice in tradi way… But ur plate never stop me to digg right away! Lovely dish!
Although basmati rice is not traditional in paella, your dish looks delicious!! Lovely and accessible version of paella! 🙂
Congratulations on your award!!! The Paella looks awesome!
Shriya & Nithu, Thanks a bunch for passing this award to me. I am really excited and it is really inspiring when you get recognition from fellow bloggers. Thanks once again and keep up the good work.
gorgeous pic…
First time at ur blog .U have nice and lovely blog.Congratulations on your award!!! The Paella looks awesome!
this is a new dish to me, thanks for introducing it here….congrats for the award
Thanks for visiting my blog. Your blog looks great.
Hey first time here..came thru your comment on paper chicken.Have heard alot about paella, but never tried to cook it.Looks delicious with seafood.And your mutton curry looks mouthwatering.Will have to come back and check out other delicious dishes.
Hi Shriya, first time to your website. Great recipe collection with awesome pictures. I love this recipe. Will visit you everyday 🙂
never made it..tho have seen it made on tv..should give it a go..looks delicious btw.
Hey shriya & nithu,
Thank you guys for passing the award to me! Its my first too!
really the paella looks great i remembers me my days i spent with the spanish chefs celebrating the spainish food festival in bangalore. good and easy receipe. keep going
Hi Shriya,
Tried a lot of your recipes and they were amazing. Firsty the Whole moong curry was a hit. I liked the inclusion of the milk, however i added 1/2 tspn of garam masala powder to the whole moong while pressure cooking to avoid the musky dhal odour. The crab curry was great and so was the mutton chukka the same recipe i also used for paneer. The paella was good too but you can use any left over meats you may have in the firdge for this dish. I like to include sausages and bacon and it imparts a great flavour that compliment the olive oil . The potato fry is a wonderful to serve with drinks at a party…..please keep posting. If u have any new recipes email me at subreycc2001@hotmail,com
amazing recipe really an appreciated one!!
Thank you so much, this was a good read. I was actually born in Madrid (I’m not telling you what year though!) but was moved around europe and finally settled in the UK when I was 5. I dont remember an awful lot of the few years I was in spain, but the delicious smell of spanish food always seems to ring a bell in me or something. Funny, how I dont remember anything except the smells,isn’t it! I actually found a internet site dedicated to spanish recipes, which gave me great delight and thought I really should to share with your readers. Anyway, thank you again. I’ll get my husband to add your cast to my rss thing…
Hi there! Your recipe does look delicious. Authentic spanish paella is made with medium or short grain rice, and is cooked with a sofrito base. You fry olive oil, onions, garlic and finely chopped or crushed tomatoes together to form a paste. Usually the chicken is left on the bone but cut into small pieces (the bone adds flavour) and is pre-cooked in the oil you then use to fry the rice in, and flavoured with saffron and sweet spanish smoked paprika. The sofrito is added to the rice, the chicken put back in, with the fish, usually some green beans and some cooked or canned butter beans. You can also add spicy sausage, skinned, chopped and fried at the start. Every family and village in Spain has their own ‘authentic’ paella recipe, so experiment until you find a mixture of vegetables, meat and fish that suits you!