Paella a la Maestre - Chef Recipe by Miguel Maestre

Ingredients

400mL chicken stock
200 g Bomba rice
4 large King prawns
10 black mussels (live)
6 pipis
4 large scallops
150 g baby calamari (cleaned and scored)
2 chorizo sausages, thinly sliced
50 g fresh or frozen peas
1 lemon, cut into wedges to serve

Sofrito:

2 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 large roasted red capsicums from a jar (piquillo)
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/2 bunch parsley
1/2 bunch chives
25mL extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp saffron threads
1 Tbs smoked paprika

Method

Sofrito:

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until chunky. If you don’t have a food processor, roughly chop the tomatoes and capsicums and finely chop the garlic and parsley and combine with other ingredients.

Paella:

Heat a 30 cm fry pan or paella pan on high heat, add chorizo and cook until golden brown. Add sofrito and cook until tomatoes start to become juicy (3-4 minutes). Add chicken stock and bring to the boil. Stir in rice and seafood and bring to simmer. Continue simmering for about 10 minutes.

When rice is tender and liquid has almost fully reduced (there should be some liquid in the fry pan), add peas and cook for a further 2 minutes to achieve ‘soccarrada’ (crust on the bottom of the pan).

Season to taste with salt and garnish with chives. Squeeze over lemon juice just before serving.

Credits: Miguel Maestre