Sunday, July 10, 2011

Delicioso Paella

A few weeks ago our cousin, Brett and his wife Pinky, were in Singapore for a week to attend a conference and for some R&R, as well. Thus, we found a good excuse to prepare something special, ergo we decided to cook Paella since I bought quite a lot of ingredients from my recent Spain trip :-).



Most of the ingredients are shown above (the rest you can see from the pics below): Paella seasoning mix, saffron, olive oil, capsicum (a.k.a. bell peppers), olives, onions and chicken cubes (for added flavour).


I bought this amazing Chorizo from El Cortes Ingles supermarket in Barcelona.




Sautee the chorizo to render the oil then add in the onions to sweat...


Since we didn't have a Paellera big enough to do the cooking, we cheated (hehe) and cooked the rice separately in the rice cooker along with the Paella seasoning mix. Normally, you would need a proper Paellera to cook the rice in. Authentic Valencian Paella calls for short-grain white rice but we prefer basmati rice as they hold up better with all the mixing and tossing.


Add in the chicken and seafood (whichever you prefer)...


We never scrimp on the white wine as this makes all the difference in taste. Luckily, we could buy small handy bottles from the nearby grocery store. Add according to your preference but we chose to dump the entire bottle :-).


We took out the chicken first to make it easier to cook the rice in the pan...


Add in the olives and tomato paste...


Aileen came up with our own seasoning mix by diluting the chicken cubes, tomato paste and saffron in a little water...


Lastly, throw back in the chicken and some capsicum. You may want to save some peppers for decor later.


Add salt and pepper according to your preference... Leave to cook until the crust gets toasted...


Voila! Delicioso Paella! Don't forget the lemon to add that zesty flavour. Of course, this recipe for Paella is already altered according to our preference and filipino manner of cooking haha. The Paella I ate in Madrid was actually a bit watery, soggy and mushy but equally delicious.

Watch out for my trip post on Valencia, Spain where instead of eating Paella I ate McDonalds hehe :-P.

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