Sevilla-Style Paella excerpted from Cocina de Andalucia: Spanish recipes from the land of a thousand landscapes by María José Sevilla. Photography by Nassima Rothacker.
Sevilla-Style Paella
Arroz ‘a la Sevillana’ en paella
In 1992 I was invited together with a group of food and wine writers to visit the universal exposition (EXPO) in Sevilla. We were offered a tasty Arroz a la Sevillana, cooked in front of us in a paella pan. This was not a classic Paella Valenciana and it did not feature any of the cooking and ingredient restrictions attached to the Valenciana. It included, among many other ingredients, chorizo, shellfish and fish. It was also quite delicious and very colourful. This is a seco (dry) rice dish in style (see page 44).
75 g/23⁄4 oz. cooking chorizo, sliced
500 g/1 lb. 2 oz. clams, washed under cold running water
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
250 g/9 oz. squid, cleaned and chopped
250 g/9 oz. monkfish, deboned and cut into pieces
150 g/5½ oz. jamón serrano (serrano ham), chopped
250 g/1-2⁄3 cups fresh peas
500 g/2-2⁄3 cups Andalucían ‘round rice’
a few Spanish saffron filaments
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
Spanish olive oil, for frying sea salt
TO SERVE
2 hard-boiled/cooked eggs, cooled, peeled and quartered
lemon wedges, for squeezing
2 roasted red (bell) peppers, cut into strips (see page 142), or from a jar
SERVES 6
First sauté the chorizo in a small frying pan/skillet with little olive oil for just a few minutes until the oil has been released and the chorizo is starting to crisp. Set aside.
Place the clams in a saucepan with a little water. Heat and let the clams open. Discard any that have remained closed or have their shells broken. Drain, reserving the clam stock and keeping it warm. Reserve the clams.
Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large shallow saucepan or paella pan. Sauté the onion until golden. Add 1 of the garlic cloves and stir. Add the squid and monkfish and stir well before adding the ham and the peas. Stir again and pour in 1.5 litres/6 cups water. Bring to the boil, then cook until the squid and the rest of the fish are almost tender. Sprinkle the rice around the pan and stir gently for the last time. Add the warm clam stock. Taste and adjust the seasoning.
Using a pestle and mortar, pound the second garlic clove, a few saffron filaments and the chopped parsley to a paste, then add this to the rice and leave to cook, uncovered, for about 18 minutes. Do not stir during this time and do not overcook the rice.
Scatter the chorizo and the clams around the pan and cook for a further 5 minutes to heat through.
When ready to serve, let it rest for a couple of minutes before serving with a few drops of lemon juice, decorate with the eggs and strips of roasted red (bell) pepper.
Recipe reprinted with permission from Ryland Peters & Small.