The Famous Paella

Many of my friends and family of whom I have cooked for over the years at some point would have tasted or heard about my paella. It is a dish I can cook with great ease and I slightly change it every time I do it, depending who I am cooking it for.
This paella was for me and Eva so not much seafood went into to the dish (squid and mussels) but for my own personal preference I would have had added them. That's the great thing about paella you can add what you like into it and add less or none of the things you dislike. The main skill in cooking the paella is adding the correct moisture to rice ratio, what is always 2:1 water to rice(2cups of stock/wine and 1cup of rice) and making sure you do not over cook at the end, although you are meant to slightly burn the bottom of the pan as this over cooking of the rice adds more to the flavour at the bottom. In places like Valencia when people cook large pans of paella people dig as low as they can scraping the bottom of the pan as it is the most tasty.

Ingredients

• Teaspoon salt, divided
• Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced Spanish chorizo sausage
• Chicken breast
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped tomato 
• 1 tablespoon capers, drained
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
• 1 cup Paella Rice
• 2/3 cup white wine
• 1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup frozen green peas
• 1/4 cup water
• 18 mussels (about 3/4 pound), scrubbed and debearded
• 2 1/2 tablespoons chopped bottled roasted red bell pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• Prawns

Method

• Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle shrimp with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper. Add shrimp to pan; sauté 4 minutes or until shrimp are done. Place shrimp in a medium bowl. Add chorizo to pan, and cook for 1 minute or until browned. Add chorizo to bowl.
• Sprinkle chicken with 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/8 teaspoon black pepper. Add chicken to pan, and cook for 2 minutes on each side or until browned. Add onion and garlic to pan; cook 2 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Stir in the tomato, capers, and saffron; cook 1 minute. Add remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, rice, wine, and broth to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 25 minutes or until rice is tender.

1. Add shrimp mixture, peas, 1/4 cup water, and mussels to pan. Cover and cook 8 minutes over medium heat or until mussels open; discard any unopened shells. Remove from heat and stir in bell pepper and cilantro. Let stand 3 minutes.

Serve with Garlic bread

Enjoy