Try me from Recipe Basket.......: Seafood Paella

Description:
Paella(paea) is a dish from Spain. There are different kinds of Paella which are prepared with seafood, meat, vegetables, beans etc. Paella is cooked over open fire and is traditionally eaten directly out of the paella pan. The main ingredient that give the flavour are saffron and garlic. Traditionally paella is prepared with bomba/valencia/arborio rice etc. Each variety of these rice are different in size(short grain/long grain) , texture and absorb the moist fast. If we search Paella most of the picture shows paella made with short grain rice. Anyways I couldn`t find any of the above mentioned rice at my place. I once tasted Paella in a restaurant that was prepared with Japanese rice but it was bit sticky. Anyways I loved the concept how all the ingredients are cooked together and so I started my research on Paella. Unfortunately the rice used in the original recipes was tedious to find. I did my brain stroming and suddenly Samba rice came to my notice, which looks almost similar to the paella rice and the texture looks same after cooking. So I tried with it and came out tasty. When you make paella if any of this rice ie bomba/valencia/arborio rice etc is available at your store kindly use it in preparation.

Ingredients:
1. Prawns - 150gms
2. Squid - 150gms(cut into ring shape)
3. Tilapia fillet - 1(you can use any fleshy fish like cod fish etc)
4. Mussels - 250gms
5. Bomba/valencia/arborio rice - 1cup(I used samba rice as I couldn`t find any of these rice at my place).
6. Fish stock - 2 cups
7. Garlic
8. Saffron
9. Pepper powder- 2tspn
10. Paprika - 1 tspn
11. Red bell pepper - 2(I ran out of red bell pepper so I used Orange)
12. Onion - 1 (medium)
13. Tomato - 1(Unseeded and peel of the skin)
14. Olive oil
15. Frozen greenpeas - 1/2cup
16. Water - 1/2cup
17. Salt to taste

Procedure:

Preparing the fish stock:
Cut the Tilapia fillets into 3 or 4 big pieces. Transfer them into a stock pot. Add pepper powder, crushed garlic and salt. Finally goes in water. Close the lid and cook for 10-15 minutes. Remove the fish pieces from the stock and pour the stock to a separate bowl.

Preparing Seafood:
I bought the squid meat that are already cut into ring shapes. Clean and devein the prawns. Traditionally the mussels are drop into the rice while cooking but I cooked the mussels prehand. Its very simple to cook the mussels. Use the same vessel in which fish stock was prepared. Brush and take out any thread over the mussels. Wash under running water. Drop them in the stock pot and pour water. Cover the lid and cook for 5-10 minutes. Open the lid and you can see the mussels have crack open and incase any mussel haven`t opened discard it.

Take a frying pan and pour very little olive oil. Add the prawns and squid into it. Add some paprika, pepper powder and salt. Stir fry on both the sides till they start to change color and finally drop in the fish fillets. Mix well and turn off the stove. Incase any juice is left in the pan let it be there and don`t make it dry.

Preparing Paella:
Samba rice sometimes gives an odour while cooking and is not always liked by all. So what I did was I washed the rice 3- 4 times and then soaked it for sometime with a pinch of turmeric powder. There are paella pan available specifically for cooking the dish. If you don`t have the same at home use some flat bottom pan to cook. Chop the onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic. Unseed the tomatoes and peel off the skin. I forgot to peel off the skin so while cooking I took them out. Soak the saffron in 2-3 tspn of water. Take the pan and pour little oil. Add the garlic first followed by onion. Saute for sometime and add the bell pepper and green peas. Cook them for sometime and then add the tomatoes. Add salt and cook till the tomatoes are done.

Then add the rice and stir fry the rice for few seconds. Next add the soaked saffron and the 2 cups of fish stock. You can add 1/2 cup of water too. Then drop in the seafood together with the juice if any. Stir everything once and then turn down the flame to medium. Don`t use lids for cooking. Allow the rice to cook slowly. When little moist is left in the rice add the mussels too.

Cook till the rice is done and the bottom of the rice becomes dry with no moist. But be careful the bottom shouldn`t get burnt. Turn off the stove and let the paella sit for 5-10 minutes. You can cover the pan with lid during the sitting time.