Skip to main content

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. :)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hundred Thousand Dollar worth Rava Upma (Indian Semolina Polenta)

Now you must be thinking, who doesn't know to make Rava Upma? What is so special about it? Every 5th person residing in India knows to make it and is a common breakfast item in almost all the Indian household. We Indians take this dish for granted. Well up until a week back, even I thought the same about this dish and looked down on Rava Upma. Not anymore. Last week I read a news about an Indian born, New York Chef Floyd Cardoz who won the top prize of £100,000 in an American show called "Top Chef Masters". No prize for guessing, he made RAVA UPMA!! After reading the article, I immediately decided that the recipe of a basic version of Upma must be on my blog. And here I am sharing the if not a "million dollar", then atleast a "hundred thousand dollar worth Upma Recipe". :) Upma is a popular South Indian Breakfast dish, mainly prepared by Semolina. It has a great resemblance with the Italian Polenta. It can be made with many variations by adding vegeta...
13 comments
Read more

Anniversary & Pouring Awards with Pista Kulfi

Took a break from blog & cooking for a couple of days as I was in a mood to celebrate!! That's right, Arun and I celebrated our 4 years of married life on 10th June. Phew, time truly flies in just a snap!! (Below is our wedding snap, a perfect South Indian Wedding shot...please don't laugh at it.;). So I was in no mood to cook that day & told Arun that the meals of the day will be either frozen, take away or a dine out. He preferred the third one. ;) So we went to one of our favourite food joints {Did I tell you, that we live in a place called Chesterfield, a Historic Market Town in UK & don't have much choices around here ;)}, "Frankie & Benny's."My god, we both die for those thin crust Italian Pizzas & the cheesy gar(lick)y bread which melts in your mouth like a candy floss...Aah! Now, I have to tell you what we ordered, because it was that good. ;) For starters, we ordered their famous garlic bread with crispy coated chicken ...
24 comments
Read more

Light Lunch - Vegetable Soup

My last few days at Chesterfield, home alone, cherishing all the happy memories of the last 4 years. Spent whole day flipping through the photographs with a hot mug of Coffee relaxing on my recliner. I was in no mood to cook but then getting hungry is human, so I had to visit my kitchen to see what could be made. I decided to go light today so made use of all the remaining veggies (to clear off the fridge) to make a healthy Vegetable Soup. I finished off making a warm, healthy, filling soup for my lunch just within half an hour & went back to my couch only to get more lazy. Sometimes its good when you do nothing at all!! ;) Ingredients: 1/2 of medium cauliflower (cut into florets) 2 medium carrots (peeled & finely diced) 1 cup of fresh or frozen peas 1 medium potato (finely diced) 1 medium onion (finely chopped) 2-3 cloves of garlic (crushed) 25 gm butter salt & pepper to season Method: Melt the butter in a pressure cooker. Now add the crushed garlic & the chopped ...
22 comments
Read more