Green Rice with Garlic, Parsley & Mussels
I love these Spanish paella-type dishes. There’s a similar, but slightly more complicated and expensive, version of this recipe in my book Long Weekends. I remember filming it at a restaurant on the beach in Cádiz. I chose the arroz verde, but the crew went for seafood paella coloured with the extremely bright yellow of fake saffron. The camera pulled away from my demure green and white bowl to reveal everybody else wearing sunglasses while eating.adding to it ingredients such as capers, preserved artichokes, mint, beans, sun-dried tomatoes and spring onion (scallion). The dip is perfect spread over crusty ħobż. You can even keep it cold and pack it for the beach.
Ingredients (serves 4-5)
60ml olive oil
60g shallots, finely chopped
12 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 litre chicken stock
100g flatleaf parsley, leaves chopped 1½ tsp salt
400g short-grain paella rice
500g raw mussels, scrubbed
Juice of ½ lemon
To serve
Aioli
Method
Heat the olive oil in a shallow flameproof casserole dish over a medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic, then fry gently for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in the stock, parsley and salt and bring to the boil.
Sprinkle in the rice, stir once, then leave to simmer vigorously over a medium-high heat for 6 minutes.
Put the mussels on top and shake the pan briefly so that they sink into the rice slightly. Lower the heat and leave to simmer gently for another 12 minutes.
At the end of this time, almost all the liquid should be absorbed, the mussels opened and the rice will be pitted with small holes. Squeeze over the lemon juice and serve with aioli.