Saturday is Paella Day

Alas, after more than two years, I was able to cook chicken paella again……

Few weeks ago, Dennis and I jumped into a CNN featured clip of Spain’s famous dish – paella. The one featured is chicken paella cooked in a very large pan which served around 50 people. Yes, that much – in a single cooking.

It reminded me of the paella recipe our Spanish friend Rebeca has taught us back in Limerick, Ireland during the ADI days. Dennis asked if I can cook for him, I said of course, but then I didn’t have time to do it until yesterday.

I had to recall the ingredients first. I browsed in the net but the recipes there are not as simple as I thought. “Where would I buy those stuffs needed” was the first thing in mind. Rebeca’s recipe was so simple. I only needed 4-5 ingredients such as rice, canned whole tomatoe, chicken and beans. Hey, these could be easily found in the grocery, at least I could see them immediately. Saffron of course is needed but I am not sure if I could find one, I thought of a food coloring as a subsitute (we did that back in LK because saffron is expensive, mind you).

Yesterday was quite a good day to cook the dish since hubs stayed at home (after several weeks of spending OT in the office), he could take care of Jade while I’ll be cooking the paella for our dinner. So off we went to the grocery and I picked up the stuffs I needed. I couldn’t find any food coloring but I thought it wouldn’t matter anyway. Rosemary leaves are also needed but I already got them at home.

Having all the ingredients needed, I started to prepare the dish with excitement. Here are what I had…

5pcs of chicken legs
250gms of beans
2 canned whole tomatoes
3 cups of rice
Rosemary leaves
Salt

…and here are the steps I did to come up to the much awaited paella –

1. Fry the chicken, brown both sides. (not deep fry)

2. Remove most of the cooking oil after the chicken has turned into brown. (and transfer the chicken to the bigger pan, of course a single pan can be used)

3. Add the beans.

4. Prepare the whole tomatoes, squeezed them in a container and added some water. I was able to buy peeled tomatoes so there was no need for me to skin them.

5. Add the tomatoes in the pan.

6. Add salt to taste

7. Sprinkle rosemary leaves.

8. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. This will make the chicken and beans absorb the savor of the tomatoes.

9. Add the rice.

(Tip: Remove some of the sauce and place it in a container. When the rice starts to get cooked, the sauce will be absorbed so if you see the sauce getting dried but with the rice still uncooked, you can pour back the sauce you removed earlier so you can get the rice cooked well).***

10. Let it cook for 20-30mins

11. Serve well and enjoy the dish.

***While the rice is getting cooked, I bathed our daughter while hubby was starting to complain that the smell of the dish made him hungry.

Hhhmmmnn, you can serve it with wine if you are into it. It’s a no-no for me at this time so we had orange juice instead.

I remember a friend told me that lemon can also be sprinkled in the paella before serving.

And here is my “Paella ala Jane” which satisfied Dennis who suggested that I cook paella weekly huh!