Salmon Paella

Its paella time..that all time favourite Spanish dish that you can very easily create at home. Paella is a type of risotto. It is cooked in roughlly the same way with the addition of slightly different flavours. There are many different varieties of paella and the most common include chicken with a seafood mixture.

We had some left over cuts of Salmon so we decided to make a quick salmon paella, using thick chunks of salmon instead of the chicken. There are three main flavours which influence the flavour of this dish. Turmeric (for flavour and the yellow colour), paprika and the stock which will carry a lot of the flavour. We normally use saffron (leave it to simmer with the stock) for added colour and flavour, but we only had a couple of strands left, so we used just turmeric.

Together with the salmon we had some raw tiger prawns with the shells on and a pack of mixed seafood (muscles, prawns and calamari rings). Don’t throw away the shells after you peel the prawns, instead use them in the stock. We added the shells to white wine and  a stock that was made with a mixture of fish sand vegetable stock cubes. The thing we love about paella is that you can make it with whatever you have. In fact every time we’ve made paella it has had different ingredients. You just need your rice, stock and basic flavourings and the seafood or meat you just change.

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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 gloves of garlic, minced
• 1 red pepper, cut into thin square pieces
• 1 cup paella rice
• 1 tsp quality smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tomato, peeled, de seeded and chopped
• Dried mixed herbs (a pinch)
• Dried chilli flakes (a pinch – optional)
• 1/2 fish stock cube
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• 1 glass white wine
• Salmon
• Your choice of seafood
• Peas
• Fresh Parsley
• Wedges of lemon

Method

• First prepare your stock and keep it in a pot over a low heat to stay hot.
• In your Paella dish or large frying pan, gently sweat the onions  for 5 minutes
• Add the garlic and red pepper continue to cook for 2-3 minutes.

• Add the Paella rice, Paprika and turmeric and stir well.
• Add your peeled, chopped tomatoes and fry for a few minutes until the rice is well coated and begins to turn translucent.

• Add the white wine, stir and allow the alcohol to burn off for a few minutes.
• Add the mixed herbs and chilli flakes
• Then add a couple of ladles of stock, stir well and allow to simmer on a low heat. Once the stock has been absorbed, add some more hot stock, 1 ladle at a time for another 10 minutes.

• In the meantime add a knob of butter to some olive oil in a pan and add 1/2 a tsp of Paprika. Turn up the heat the add the salmon for 1-2 minutes on the skin side to brown.
• Remove the salmon then lightly fry the seafood mix also for 1-2 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

• Add the salmon to the pan and place the whole paella dish in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for 10 minutes. Add more stock as and when it is needed and stir the rice gently making sure you do not break up the salmon
• Add the peas and seafood mix and cook for a further 5-10 minutes making sure the rice & seafood is cooked.

• Garnish with wedges of lemon and freshly chopped parsley.
• Serve immediately.

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