So last night I had plans to have someone over for dinner and I got totally blown off. Yes, someone decided to not come over for dinner. This was somewhat distressing since I had purchased a bunch of food and needed to cook it before leaving on a trip to Lake Powell for four days of NO TECHNOLOGY.
Timmy to the rescue. Not only is he a great friend, but he shares my love of all things epicurean. Timmy and his partner Jim joined me for dinner last night and Timmy and I were the cooks. We knew we wanted to make a rice dish and settled on paella.
There was a part of me that really thought it would be a long and arduous process, but it was quite easy. We used the Joy of Cooking Valencia Paella recipe as the base and added in what we thought would be tasty.
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 4 or 5 chicken thighs, chopped into bite size pieces
- 1 or 2 pieces of Tilapia fillet, chopped into bite size pieces
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 medium, sweet onion, chopped
- 1 small can of diced tomatoes
- 1 tsp of saffron
- 3 cups of hot chicken broth
- 1.5 cups of rice
- More hot chicken broth if needed
- Salt and Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Cover the bottom of a large saute pan with olive oil and saute the chicken and fish until just about cooked (about 3-5 minutes) on medium. Remove from the pan and set aside. Place the garlic and onions into the pan (with the leftover fat and scrapings from the fish and chicken) and sweat for a few minutes on medium. Add the tomatoes and cook down for about 5 minutes on medium. Then add the chicken broth and the saffron and cook for 10 more minutes on high.
Now add the rice and make sure that all ingredients are well distributed throughout the pan. Cook on medium-high for about 20-25 minutes. Add more chicken broth if needed. Once the rice is cooked through add the chicken and fish back into the pan and cook for another 3-5 minutes.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve and Enjoy.
Comments