PASS THE PAELLA: TV chef Miguel Maestre shares a classic Spanish recipe
Lovable Spanish-born Australian chef, author, television presenter and Harris Scarfe ambassador Miguel Maestre shares recipes he loves to cook for friends and family over the Easter holidays.
Seafood paella a la Maestre
SERVES 2-4 PREP AND COOK TIME 40 MINUTES splash extra virgin olive oil
100g clean calamari, scored
5 large green prawns, unpeeled (see tip, opposite)
3 cups (750ml) chicken stock
250g bomba rice (use arborio if you can’t find bomba)
10 black mussels, cleaned
10 pippies
4 scallops, in the half shell
200g white fish, sliced into 5 pieces (see tip) ½ cup snow peas, sliced lemon wedges
½ bunch chives, chopped
SOFRITO
3 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped 5 large roasted red capsicums from jar (piquillo) with liquid
6 cloves garlic, peeled
½ bunch parsley
½ bunch chives
25ml extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon saffron threads
2 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 SOFRITO
Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until chunky. If you don’t have a food processor then simply roughly chop the tomatoes and capsicums, finely chop the garlic and parsley and combine with other sofrito ingredients.
2 Heat a 30cm frying pan or paella pan with a splash of oil on high heat and add calamari and prawns, stirring until it begins to get some colour. Add sofrito and cook for 3-4 minutes or until it`s mostly reduced. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil. Stir in rice and bring to a simmer. Now add mussels, pippies, scallops and fish evenly over rice. Continue simmering for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, season stock to taste with salt.
3 When rice is tender and liquid has mostly reduced, add snow peas and cook for a further 2 minutes to achieve ‘soccarrada’, the crust on the bottom of the pan. Squeeze over lemon juice just before serving and garnish with chopped chives.