rice dishes
LUCY’S PAELLA
This is a recipe from our community and friends. Thanks to the the lovely Lucy Byrnes for the permission to share and adapt a recipe that makes her feel festive and takes her to a happy place she wants to share with us.
Lucy’s recipe feeds 4-6. It helped us see how easy is it to make paella at home to share with loved ones at all times and particularly during festivities.
What:
- 6 chicken drumsticks & wings (around 500g)
- 75g chorizo, sliced
- 2 peppers, Lucy recommends yellow & red for the colours
- 2 medium onions, finely chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- ½ -1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2-6 strands of saffron
- 2 pints or 1200 litre chicken or other stock (1 or 2 stock cubes depending on taste)
- 200g-250g paella rice
- 500-700g sea food you want (Lucy likes big prawns with the heads on and mussels. Use half and half)
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- Lemon to serve
- Salt for chicken
How:
- Get the mussels soaking for a few hours, scrub well to remove grit and pull the beards off.
- Season the chicken with generous amount of salt. Set aside whilst you prepare the veg.
- Prepare the hot stock, add the saffron, a couple of prawn heads and a mussel or two and set aside.
- Use a paella pan or shallow cast iron pan with a lid instead.
- Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in the pan and lightly brown the chicken both sides turning occasionally for about 5 minutes.
- Add the sliced chorizo. Cook for a further minute.
- Take the chicken and chorizo out and set aside making sure the fat stays in the pan.
- Add the chopped onion to the pan (no need for extra oil) and fry until it starts to caramelise. Add the sliced peppers and cook for a couple more minutes.
- Stir in the crushed garlic, a small amount of saffron and the rice and stir it well.
- Return the chicken and chorizo to the pan.
- Add the stock first bit at a time, then the rest of it after a couple of minutes. Stir well and simmer for about 15 minutes.
- At this point the rice probably needs between 5 and 10 minutes so you need to add the mussels.
- Cover and after 3-4 minutes add the big prawns.
- Then turn the heat off and let it sit with the lid on for 10 minutes so that the rice can soak up all the juices.
- Squeeze some lemon juice when you serve and a nice cold glass of white wine and you are sorted as Lucy says.
Lia’s Kitchen Notes
- If you have no paella rice, you can use risotto or pudding rice. Just wash once to clear some starch.
- You can add the paprika to the chicken to marinade.
- Stir fry the rice until it starts getting translucent before adding the stock.
- Once you add the stock, stir once and then cook uncovered for 15-18 min.
- In honour of the Valencian paella I like my rice slightly caramelised at the bottom. Only add the mussels in when you are sure most of the water had evaporated.
- The Spanish do not usually use chorizo but we love it as the dish It reminds us of the Creole Jambalaya, which uses long grain rice and spicy southern sausages.
- We used a ten centimetre deep pan around 25cm wide. It just about fit 3 drumsticks, 2 chicken thighs, 500g mussels and 200g prawns.
- We used chicken on the bone and with the skin on. I like crispy skin and the flavour the bone adds.
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