Prawn Paella

"In love with Spain" continues & I cooked up another popular dish from the sunshine country, Espana. The world famous "Paella" pronounced as Pa-e-ya is a popular Spanish Rice dish cooked with mainly seafood. It is cooked in a special pan known as La paella (from where the dish gets its name too), which is a wide mouthed thick shallow pan made of iron that helps in quick heat absorption and helps cooking the rice really fast. The authentic paella takes a decent amount of time to cook but nowadays who has time for those elaborate sessions in the kitchen so here is one quick paella recipe which you can make in a jiffy (well about a maximum of 20 minutes). :)

The image below is that of an authentic paella pan & the paella rice. You can swap these two with any of the wide mouthed shallow pans already at home & long grain rice respectively.

Vegetarians need not be disappointed as they too can substitute the chicken stalk with vegetable stalk & prawns with mushroom, artichokes, bell peppers, tomatoes, beans, olives etc (try combining two to three ingredients in your paella). Cook up some Paella and bring home the Spanish Sunshine. Muchos Gracias!!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup paella rice (or any long grain rice)
• 3 & 1/2 cup chicken stock (if you are a vegetarian, then use vegetable stock)
• 1 medium onion (finely chopped)
• 1 bell pepper or capsicum, finely sliced (any colour, but I prefer red to give the dish some brightness)
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas
• 20-25 prawns (preferably frozen, cooked one or else you can saute the uncooked prawns separately in a tbsp of oil for 5 minutes)
• 2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• 1 & 1/2 tsp paprika
• a pinch of saffron (kesar)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• salt to season
• chopped parsley to garnish

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a wide mouthed deep flat pan (or the paella pan) and add the chopped onions, sliced bell pepper & chopped garlic to it. Saute for a minute or two until just tender.
2. Add the paella rice, a pinch of saffron & paprika to it. Saute well for couple of minutes.
3. Now pour the chicken /vegetable stock to the rice and cook the rice in medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until cooked. Add salt at this stage. If you feel the stock is not enough for the rice, add some water to it & let all the liquid get soaked up by the rice.
4. When the rice is almost done, add the cooked prawns & peas and mix well with the rice.
5. Sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley and voila your easy quick prawn paella is ready to be gobbled up. :)