Thinking about summer in winter

December 26, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under christmas, cooking, food, meat, summer, Uncategorized, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

It’s the day after Christmas and I’m already thinking about summer. I blame the paella valenciana that I prepared the other night. It made me think S—sun, sea, and Spain, of course.

Below is the recipe taken from the magazine All about Food. It’s the paella recipe for 6 persons that I follow.

  • 300 grams chicken thighs
  • 300 grams chicken breast fillet
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 yellow onions
  • 1 red capsicum
  • 1 green capsicum
  • 4 decilitres long-grain rice (Maggan’s kitchen uses long-grained whole rice)
  • 8 decilitres chicken bouillon (water + bouillon cube), as an alternative Maggan’s kitchen uses homemade vegetable stock
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • white pepper
  • 1 teaspoon tarragon
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 gram saffron
  • 10 mussels with shell (optional)
  • 250 grams frozen green peas
  • .5 kilo shrimps with shells (optional)
  • lemon
  1. Heat the oil in a paella pan or wok.
  2. Brown the chicken. Set aside.
  3. Saute the sliced capsicum, roughly chopped onions, and pressed garlic until they become soft, but not brown.
  4. Add the rice and stir.
  5. Pour the vegetable stock.
  6. Add in the saffron, salt, tarragon, bay leaf, chicken pieces.
  7. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
  8. Add in the mussels and cook them until the shells open.
  9. Shell the shrimps. Add them in. Cook until they become pink or orange.
  10. At the same time, add the frozen green peas.
  11. On serving, squeeze lemon over on the plate or pan. 

When making paella, it is important to use the right kind of rice. The sticky kind, like jasmine, will never do. Long-grain rice is the safest choice. However, if using whole grain, the result will be a wetter paella. The solution is to just cook it a little longer, extra 5 minutes, without the lid on.

I don’t mix the paella while it is cooking in the pan. Por que? The same reason why we don’t mix rice when preparing it the regular way. We want the grains whole, not mashed, not broken, and certainly not pasty.

Claire and Ed love Spanish food. Come summer time, their summer, I will treat them to this wonderful paella dish. Maggan’s kitchen goes on tour! Hasta lo!

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