Paella is considered to be a Spanish dish, but paella is primarily the calling card of Valencia. It was in its vicinity that rice was historically cultivated and the “bomba” variety was developed, which is capable of absorbing liquids 3 times its volume and is ideal for paella. However, the classic Valencian paella is a simple, powerful dish, it contains chicken, rabbit, snails, and beans, as long as everyone is full. Therefore, tourists coming to Valencia (and Spain in general) more often order paella with seafood.
Classic paella may have older roots than seafood paella, but that doesn't make the latter any less delicious. Bright rice, a variety of seafood, aromatic steam that flows over a huge frying pan - if you have tried paella at least once, you will definitely want to cook it at home. Fortunately, this is not difficult: the most difficult thing will be to buy the right Spanish rice for paella from us, but it can be replaced with arborio or other short grain rice.
Classic Spanish paella with seafood
Average
30 minutes + 20 minutes
Ingredients
2-4 servings
1 tbsp. short grain rice
2 cloves garlic
1 onion
a handful of green beans
1/2 tbsp. chopped tomatoes
6-10 large shrimp
8-14 mussels
if desired - squid, cuttlefish, scallops, and other seafood
2 tbsp. water
pinch of saffron
butter
Classic Valencian paella is a simple and powerful dish, which is why tourists in Spain often order paella with seafood. Bright rice, a variety of seafood, aromatic steam that flows over a huge frying pan - if you have tried paella at least once, you will definitely want to cook it at home.
Alexey Onegin
Rinse the rice thoroughly and place it in a colander to drain. Thaw the seafood if necessary, clean the shrimp by making a longitudinal cut through the back and removing the intestines. Do not throw away the liquid that remains after defrosting seafood, as well as shrimp heads and shells!
Blanch the beans in boiling, slightly salted water, drain in a colander, transfer to ice water to cool, then cut off the ends and chop into small pieces if desired. Cook the mussels in a covered saucepan for a few minutes until they open, reserving any liquid that remains at the bottom. Fry shrimp in hot olive oil for 1-2 minutes on each side and drain on paper towels. If desired, you can use other seafood, the general principle of preparation will be the same: chop it into small pieces, quickly fry it at the very beginning, and warm it up with the ready-made paella at the very end.
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Heat a little butter in a frying pan, add the shrimp heads and shells and stir-fry for a few minutes until they change color to dark red and begin to give off a sweet aroma. Cover with water, add the reserved seafood liquid and a pinch of salt, and cook, stirring, for half an hour. Drain the resulting mixture, pressing lightly on the heads and shells so as not to leave all the flavors in them. In total you should have 2 cups of broth, if there is less left, add water. Dissolve a pinch of saffron in the hot broth and leave it for a while so that the broth acquires a bright color and aroma.
Place the frying pan over medium heat and add olive oil until it covers the bottom of the pan, thinly but completely. Add finely chopped onion and garlic, and stir-fry for a few minutes until the vegetables become translucent. Add the beans and fry them for a minute, stirring until each piece is coated with a thin layer of oil. Add the tomatoes, cook for another minute, stirring constantly, then pour the rice evenly into the pan. Rock the pan from side to side so that the rice is distributed in an even layer. Add a pinch of salt and pour the broth over the rice.
Increase the heat until the broth comes to a boil immediately and cook the rice for 10 minutes at a noticeable simmer. After this, reduce the heat and cook for about 10 minutes until all the broth has partially evaporated and is partially absorbed into the rice. Keep in mind that if you used a short grain rice other than Spanish bomba rice, it may take longer to cook - in this case, taste the rice and if it remains tough, add a little water and cook the rice to desired level. consistency before moving on to the final step of preparing the paella.
A few minutes before the paella is ready, place the pre-cooked seafood on the rice so that it has time to heat up without becoming rubbery. After you remove the pan from the heat, leave the paella alone for another 5 minutes to allow the rice to absorb any remaining liquid. Serve the finished paella with seafood to the table directly in a large frying pan: this is the same shell that you can use several times. Don’t forget about the lemon, pre-cut into slices - some people like to sprinkle its juice over the paella.
Step 1: Prepare the ingredients.
Frozen seafood must first be defrosted, then rinsed thoroughly and drained of excess water. Place a wide frying pan over high heat, add and heat the olive oil, then add the dried seafood, fry for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then place in a separate bowl. Place the saffron in a glass and pour boiling water over it. It should infuse for about 20 minutes. Carefully peel the onions, then rinse under cold water and cut into cubes. Bell peppers, wash, cut in half and remove seeds, then cut into cubes. You can prepare tomato puree using a medium grater.Step 2: Prepare seafood paella.
Sauté the onion in the same frying pan until translucent. Then add the rice and mix well. Fry the rice, stirring constantly, for several minutes. Now add salt to your taste and you can pour boiling water and saffron over the rice. The liquid should cover it by about 1-1.5 cm. Reduce heat and cook for about 20 minutes. Don't stir. Step 3: Add tomato and peas.
First add tomato puree and spread it evenly over the surface, also do not mix. After about 10 minutes you can add peas and bell peppers. You can add a little water as needed. Step 4: Serve paella with seafood.
When all the liquid has been absorbed into the rice and it is ready, carefully and beautifully place the seafood on top of everything. Use lemon slices as garnish. Leave the dish for 5 minutes to steep. Seafood paella is best served hot, straight from the pan. And, already at the table, you can divide it into portions. Enjoy your meal! The layer of rice should not exceed two centimeters. Thus, it will be much more aromatic and the dish juicier.
If you want to follow all the Spanish traditions associated with this dish, then all seafood should be laid out only after the dish is ready, as a tasty decoration.
If you are going to use fresh seafood, be sure to follow these recommendations:
Mussels need to be thoroughly scrubbed with a brush under cold water, and then boiled for about 10 minutes;
It is better to throw away mussels that have not opened;
Scallops need to be peeled, then washed and fried on both sides;
First boil the shrimp, then peel them.
Hello, dear friends!
Today we have a very tasty dish for a large company. I offer a photo recipe for “Seafood Paella”, where in detail, step by step, you will learn how to prepare this delicious traditional Spanish dish.
It was no coincidence that I wrote that it is for a large company. Because it is cooked in a large frying pan and you want to share it with friends. Which is what I did yesterday.
And don’t let this unusual name scare you: paella, translated from Spanish, is just a frying pan. It is in a frying pan that this dish is prepared and even served. Even in restaurants. And even in restaurants, connoisseurs and lovers of this delicacy prefer to order together and receive a huge frying pan of amazing beauty.
Just imagine: they bring to your table a mountain of brightly sunny rice with seafood, sausages, and vegetables. Consolidation!
There are different recipes for paella itself, but today we will talk about how to cook seafood paella.
To begin with, we need such products
Ingredients
- 400 g seafood (seafood cocktail)
- 2 cups rice
- 1 liter fish broth
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 medium onion
- 50-100 ml tomato paste or tomato juice
- 0.5 red bell pepper
- 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 2-3 cloves of garlic
- 0.5 tsp. turmeric
- 1 lemon
- Parsley
- Salt, black pepper
Preparation
Since our paella is made with seafood, we can’t do without it. Therefore, you need to buy a mixture of sea “reptiles”, including shrimp, mussels, octopuses, squid and other living creatures. Before cooking, you should read the cooking instructions on the package. It happens that they are already prepared and frozen, and some need to be cooked. But, in any case, you will need to defrost them. I'm not talking about those lucky owners of fresh seafood (you skip that cooking step).
So, the seafood is defrosted.
Separately, you need to peel the onions and garlic.
Wash and take half of the red bell pepper. I recommend red as it will add brightness to our dish, but any other (green and yellow) is certainly possible. Remove seeds.
Cut the onion and bell pepper into small cubes.
As I already said, we will need a large frying pan, preferably one with a lid. I have this one.
Heat a frying pan with half the olive oil and fry the seafood for no more than 5 minutes. Otherwise, they will be hard later.
After that, put the seafood from the frying pan into a separate plate, and add the rest of the vegetable oil to the frying pan and fry the onion and crushed garlic in it until transparent.
Then add the bell pepper and fry for another 5 minutes.
At the end add chopped tomato and tomato paste. I had cherry tomatoes in their own juice and replaced them with fresh ones. In winter this is an option.
Then comes the rice, add it and fry for 3-4 minutes, stirring, so that the rice is saturated with oil.
Then pour fish broth over the rice, add salt and pepper, and add turmeric. Actually, Spanish seafood paella is made with saffron, but I use turmeric because it gives a richer, brighter yellow color and is beneficial for everything.
For some reason, for a long time I thought that paella was a typical Spanish way of cooking rice, when you throw anything you like into a frying pan along with the rice, plus saffron - and voila, HERE IT IS! This opinion, it turns out, is not unique to me, but all the same, it is a delusion. Even two.
Upon closer inspection, paella is not a Spanish dish, but a Valencian dish. And the difference (from the point of view of the Spaniards) there is about the same as, say, between Soviet and Tatar cuisine. And from the point of view of the residents of Valencia, only Spaniards or other foreigners can think of putting whatever they can into their paella. Therefore, “paella with anything” even earned the nickname “tourist”. There are 200 recipes for normal traditional paella in the country, and if you really want to cook the real thing, then there’s no point in getting in the way!
The classic seafood paella Paella de marisco, in addition to seafood made from animals and not plant ingredients, can only include fish. But seafood should be presented in three groups.
So, octopus or squid, any shrimp and crustaceans, as well as any shellfish with shells are suitable for us. There should be 1-3 species of each type of animal. Olive oil - to taste. The rice should be the kind that is suitable for paella. I will have a “bomb” - small round grain. The vegetable part consists of red and green peppers, onions and garlic, plus sprigs of parsley. You also need white wine and fish broth. Saffron is desirable.
If you don’t have true saffron, then you must use tomato paste, otherwise the rice will turn out without the desired golden hue. If you have saffron, then using tomatoes is acceptable. With salt, be very careful: firstly, seafood itself is often salty; and secondly, fish broth, quite possibly, too. In short, I made it without additional salt, it’s easier to add salt to everyone on the plate. The exact composition of the products that I took was designed for 2 servings (according to the Spanish hostess, in my opinion - for all three).
Paella with seafood can be served with citrus fruits - lemon and/or lime, but they do not take part in the cooking process.
Fry large and small shrimp with mussels in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until the mussels open and the shrimp turn from gray or colorless to orange. Transfer from the pan to a plate and set aside.
While the shrimp are frying, cut up the octopus or squid.
In the frying pan in which the shrimp and mussels were already fried, fry the squid in the same oil until darkened. Place the squid in a different bowl than the shrimp and mussels.
While the squid is fried, dice the red and green peppers, onions and chop the parsley.
Properly fry the pre-chopped vegetables and a clove of garlic (until the onion is golden) in a frying pan from which the squid has been removed.
Pour wine into the vegetables, scrape the bottom with a spatula and evaporate the wine until the liquid thickens slightly.
Place the oven on preheat. Yes, yes, an oven! Yes, I know that paella is traditionally cooked over an open fire, but I still don’t have an open fire, and in general the stove is electric, but with the oven it turns out just fine! The recipe was taken from a Spanish cooking site, so it's fair!
Add rice, saffron and squid to the vegetables with the evaporated wine, and stir the whole thing in a frying pan over low heat until the rice absorbs the liquid. If you don’t have saffron, then you definitely need to plop in a teaspoon of tomato paste. If there is saffron, then tomatoes are introduced in the next step.
Add small shrimp and scallops to the total mass in the pan. Since I want to make a formal serving, I tamp the rice with all the small things into a frying pan that can be put in the oven, and place large shrimp and mussels, as well as tomatoes, on top. If you make it purely for eating, then you can, of course, mix it all up.
The pan is placed in the oven and filled with broth. Paella is not a risotto, the liquid is added there in one fell swoop before cooking, so it is very important to follow the proportions of the recipe. Paella in this case is cooked in the oven on a medium level at a temperature of 180°C for 15-20 minutes. If the liquid has completely evaporated, then allow the dish to rest for five minutes; and if not yet, then place the seafood paella on the burner, evaporate the remaining broth and let it rest for five minutes.
Serve seafood paella with lemon or lime wedges. Bon appetit!
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Paella is the national Valencian dish, which the whole world considers a symbol of Spain. Now considered a delicacy, but originally it was considered the food of the poor: cheap rice, simple wine, fish from the sea - all these products were always on the table of the peasants. The story tells a different story about the appearance of the dish: once a rich dignitary came to Valencia, to whose reception the residents came with gifts - with food that was at home. From everything that was brought, the cooks prepared one dish in a large frying pan. This is how paella was born. Later, special utensils for cooking appeared - paellera, a thick-walled frying pan with two handles. Today we will master the simplest, classic recipe for paella with seafood.
Ingredients:
If you have plans for seafood paella, the recipe is simple. For 3-4 servings you need to take:
- rice – 2.5 cups,
- sea bass – 500 gr,
- tiger shrimps – 300 gr,
- seafood mixture – 300 g,
- canned sweet peas – 1 jar,
- cherry tomatoes – 10-15 pcs.,
- white onion – 1 pc.,
- one lemon,
- olive oil – 50 ml,
- fish broth – 800 ml,
- garlic – 2 cloves,
- a bunch of parsley and cilantro,
- a mixture of peppers and salt - to taste,
- white wine (semi-sweet or dry) – 200 ml,
- water – 300 ml,
- saffron - a spoonful of ground or 2 spoons of threads.
Paella with seafood: step-by-step recipe
- Clean the fish, cut into small pieces, fry for 3-5 minutes in a drop of oil.
- Make broth from the leftovers (heads, tails, etc.). Season with pepper and salt to your taste, add half the herbs when cooking, cool, strain.
- Clean the thawed shrimp, remove the intestinal vein, head and shells.
- Cook a thick broth from the heads, shells (after frying them), wine and water. Boil, add spices. Remove from heat, cool, strain.
- Drizzle oil over peeled shrimp and bake in oven for 3 minutes.
- Mix the oil with saffron and garlic, leave until it turns bright red.
- Thaw the seafood cocktail.
- Cut the tomatoes into quarters.
- Fry the rice in a paellera in olive oil until it smells characteristic (2 minutes over medium heat).
- Pour the fish and shrimp broth over the rice and stir. The rice should be completely submerged in liquid. If it is not enough, add a little water. Boil the rice over high heat for 6 minutes, stirring.
- Reduce heat to medium and add remaining ingredients: fish, shrimp, mixed seafood, cherry tomatoes. Stirring thoroughly, cook for 3 minutes. Then cook over low heat for another 15-20 minutes, the liquid should almost completely evaporate.
- Turn off the stove, sprinkle the dish with herbs, lay out lemon slices, serve, letting the dish sit for 10 minutes to saturate the flavors and aromas.
Looking at the plan of action and the list of products, not every housewife will want to get involved in such a large-scale action. But for those who are not afraid and decide to try this culinary experiment for the first time, a truly amazing result awaits. Take note of the recipe for a party or holiday dinner. Treat your loved ones to a riot of southern flavors. Save the cooking method in your diary, and then you won’t have to type “classic paella recipe with seafood” into the search engine every time.
