Seafood Paella Singapore style

Since we're on Rice, i figured let's do another rice dish..something European but adapted to whatever tools we have. Of course ideally, in a perfect world, you can actually invest in a Paella pan or use the actual Valencia rice or calaspara but since we're about home cooking, let's try to keep this simple. If you have a relatively flat giant pan, this would work well. What you want is to get the heat distributed evenly. For me, unfortunately i have to improvise with atraditional chinese wok! :P

See those red stigma.
That's what ends up as saffron

A little bit of history for your conversations over dinner to impress your guests..You can do one of those.."Did you know that...blah blah blah"

- Paella originates from Valencia

- It's more a dish for the common man, think more our chicken rice type versus crab meat fried rice.

- Paella actually stems from the old french/latin word which means Pan.

- Saffron is actually the stigma from a flower. One of the most expensive spices in the world! A pinch cost me almost S$10!

For me personally, as you start cooking any dish, think about the origins/essence or as i would call it - the heart of the dish...this would lead you to the core flavors and hence ingredients and spices you need to put in. The unique flavors that makes it what it is! The rest is improvisation...

Ok enough history and philosophy...let's get down to cooking. So what are the essentials that give the paella it's flavor?

- Saffron

- Prawn/seafood stock if you're doing the seafood paella

Ingredients:

- Rice (Since Valencia rice is quite hard to find, you can just go for the Brani rice you find in the Singapore supermarts)

- Seafood: Prawns, mussels, squid, fish etc etc (Please feel free to be flexible)

- 2 large onions (finely chopped)

- 1 garlic (finely chopped)

- Olive Oil

- Tomatoes (Or the peeled can type will do as well)

- Light Soya sauce

- Paprika

Optional: Dry white wine

Preparations:

The Stock

- De-shell the prawns and remove the head. NOTE: DO NOT THROW AWAY THE SHELLS & HEAD! ( I actually do freeze these for stock in future if i do not use them for any dishes at that point in time)

- Clean the mussels thoroughly. Boil in a pot of water until they open up.

- Remove the mussels that open and put them aside first. Discard those which don't. Key here is don't overcook the mussels, they get all wrinkled up and lose their juiciness. Boil them just enough for them to open. Once again...DO NOT THROW AWAY THE STOCK! After you've removed the mussels, throw in the prawn shells and head and continue boiling. This will form your stock base!

- Boil until you see this "orangie" reddish foam on the surface. Now remove the shells and prawn head.

- If you are using fish as well, boil the fish before putting in the prawns. (Here's a little trick for fish treatment i learnt from the fish-head beehoon gurus: Before you put the fish into the pot, just dip them into a bowl of water with salt and corn starch. This will give a nice firm, smooth texture to your fish)

The Prawn and Squid

- Season the de-shelled prawns and squid with some grounded black pepper and light soya sauce

- Pour some olive oil into a pan. Throw in about 2 table spoon worth of garlic. Fry at medium heat.

- Throw in the squid first as it takes longer to cook. Remove the squid and set aside

- Turn up the heat and throw in the prawns. Fry until it's just turned orangie/red. Remove and set aside

At this point, you might have some "Seafood juice" accumulating in the frying pan. Pour these back into the stock you prepared earlier.

Cooking:

1) Pour about 1 cup of olive oil into the frying pan

2) Throw in the onions/garlic (Fry until you can smell the fragrance)

3) Throw in the tomatoes

4) Create a small crater in the middle of the mixture, pour some olive oil in and fry the saffron. When the saffron gets heated up, it starts to diffuse the flavors and coloring.

5) Add in a couple of shakes of paprika for coloring. (Not too much)

6) Throw in the rice and mix well with all the yummy mixture. Low heat.

7) Depending how much rice you're cooking, add the stock. Add some salt to taste.(Once again your preferred level of saltiness)

8) Let it fry and cook for a bit. What i do now is not original and conventional from the recipe: I transfer all these into a rice cooker :) . Originally if you have a flat pan or paella pan, you can just let it cook in the pan. But what the heck, it gets the job done!

9) Once the rice is done cooking, remove into a baking/serving pan or glassware.

10) Arrange the mussels and prawns (And seafood onto the rice)

11) Preheat the oven to 220 Deg Celsius and pop everything in for about 5 to 8mins

Voila! You're done. By the way, the pic above is pre-oven. You should get a nice rich coloring on the prawns. Cut some lemon slices and place it around the serving dish for decor and if you wanna squeeze in the lemon for the zesty taste. 

Bon Appetit!