Monthly Mingle - Chicken Paella

I’ve been wanting to try cooking paella for ages, but thought it best to make a chicken paella seeing as Rob doesn’t like fish and I’m not that keen on shellfish too. When Meeta announced that the Monthly Mingle for this month was “One Dish Dinners” I knew instantly what I would do.

What amazed me about this dish was that Rob was really keen to try this! I was originally planning to do it just for me some night but when I'd told him what I was planning he said he'd love to try it, and getting Rob to try anything is impossible so I took the opportunity to broaden his tastes. His opinion of the paella:"it was nice, but needs a better ratio of chicken to rice and less onions and tomatoes". This doesn't surprise me much seeing as he hates veg and loves a ratio of 1:1 between his meat and rice/potato. So I'll have to give this another go with a few edits. I thought this was lovely and can't wait until I have this next.

I can't remember where I got this recipe from, because I'd saved it as a word file. But I made a few edits to make it my own.


Chicken Paella

Serves 2-3

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
2 slices of bacon, cut into strips
250g chicken breast or thigh, cut into 1” cubes
1 small onion, cut into wedges
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 cup of paella or short grain rice
½ cup of white wine
¼ tsp of chili powder or a few drops of Tabasco sauce to taste
1 tsp of smoked paprika plus extra to garnish
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ cup of chicken stock with ¼ tsp of saffron threads added
¼ cup of green peas
1” chorizo sausage, finely sliced , then cut into strips
2 tomatoes, chopped roughly
fresh chopped parsley

Recipe
1. Heat a large frypan, wok or traditional paellera pan. Add half the oil and bacon, fry until golden. Remove from the pan and set aside.
2. In the same pan add the chicken cubes and sauté stirring frequently until they're cooked through and golden. Remove from the pan and set aside.
3. Add the rest of the oil to the pan and sauté the onion until transparent without browning.
4. Add the crushed garlic and rice, and stir to coat with oil.
5. Add the white wine, chili/tabasco, paprika, bay leaf, salt and pepper.
6. Add one ladle of the stock and saffron mix. Continue ladling in the stock one ladle at a time, stirring and simmering until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. This will take 15 - 20 minutes.

7. Add the peas and chopped tomatoes to gently cook through.

8. Add back the cooked bacon and chicken pieces, stirring through to heat.
9. Add the sliced Chorizo, continue to heat through.

10 . Serve sprinkled with freshly chopped parsley and a little dusting of more smoked paprika, if desired.