cooking challenge week eight: seafood paella

Paella is a very historic and traditional spanish peasant dish and can there are many, many conflicting recipes for the dish. I've made a pretty simple seafood paella and it was oh so yummy.

You will need:

3 finely chopped garlic cloves
1 large tomato
1 capsicum
1 spanish onion
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 1/2 cups arborio rice (or other medium grain)
200mL dry white wine
1 litre boiling hot vegetable stock
1 tsp good saffron strands (I really think the quality of this dish is so dependant on the quality of the ingredients - use great saffron to get a really rich colour. I get mine from Carluccios and it's the best I've come across.)
2 tsp paprika
Seafood (I used: 8 king prawns, 10 mussels, 2 squid tubes)
Curly parsley
3 tbs olive oil

What to do:

Put the saffron and wine in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Set aside as soon as it starts to bubble. Meanwhile, deseed the tomato and capsicum, then finely dice all of the vegetables.

Get a large, flat frying pan going on moderate heat and add the oil. Gently fry off the capsicum, garlic and onion until softened (approximately ten minutes - onion should be translucent). Add the paprika and stir until the vegetables are coloured, then add the tomato and fry for another few minutes. Add the rice, wine, saffron and stock and bring the boil. Do not stir from this point onwards - paella is supposed to be "flat cooked". Bring the heat right down to low and leave it to simmer for around 10 - 15 minutes.

While this is happening, prepare your seafood. Slice the squid tubes into neat 1cm thick rings. Peel the prawn bodies but leave the heads and tails intact. Lightly rinse the mussels (don't scrub them or the colour will wash off and stain the paella), chip off any barnacles, pull out the beards. If any mussels are open, lightly press them shut and if they don't stay shut, discard them.

Arrange the seafood over the top of the rice and steam it (with a lid on) for five minutes. Add all the peas, some finely chopped parsley and steam for another minute or so. Serve immediately (check the mussels are opened and discard any that aren't. The prawns and calamari should be completely white). Serve with lemon wedges and more parsley to garnish.