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Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Seafood Paella

Hey folks I am working from a new photo that I took last night with my amazing camera again that I bought for blogging. I also am blogging with the subject of this being a new post and not an archive picture which I have more of them to go through and we will get to the very bottom of them Inshallah so please bare with me.

Add 1/4 cup of olive oil to the large coldero on high heat and add 1 onion or shallot cut in to half moon slices and fry until golden. Add 5 cloves of garlic chopped, 1 chili of any type which have to be deseeded before chopping. Add 1 cup of rice of any type to a large mixing bowl and rinse until the water turns clear by filling bowl up with water to cover the rice and then drain and keep repeating until the water is clear then add to the pot on stovetop. Add 1 pinch of saffron to 1/4 cup of water. Fry the rice a little and add the saffron infused water along with the saffron strands inside. Add either 1 dried rose petal which can be bought from Amazon or even at some Mexican grocery stores or 1 drop of rose essence which can be bought at any Indian and Pakistani grocery store. Don’t worry they are alcohol free.

Stir and add 1 or 2 pieces of citrus peels and juilliene them in to small pieces. If you have especially orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, tangelo, tangerine or even blood orange of which it was grapefruit peel I had used this time around while in my black bean paella recipe I used the orange rind. Make sure you wash them off and place them in a zip baggy and chuck them in the freezer. They freez very well or you can use 1 tiny piece of a dried lime instead. This you can buy from any Middle Eastern grocery store. Add 3 dashes of either goya seasonador or adobo, 3 dashes each of maggi or knorr aroma, balsamic vinegar.

Add 1 pinch each of paprika, red chili powder, oregano, parsley and stir. Add 1 chopped tomato. 1/2 bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Here you can add your choice of fish and other seafoods if you wish. I added 1 can of small shrimp, 1 can of smoked oysters, 1 can of smoked mussels which are all undrained 1 can of sardines in tomato sauce. I had 1/2 bag of frozen scallops which I thawed out rised and drained before using. Also you can use frozen or smoked fish if you wish. Just use the fillets and rinse and cut in to cubes before adding. Just go easy on the smoked fish because it can be salty. You can also add 2 to 4 crabs if they are blue crabs but 1 will do if they are larger and you can add also fresh clams, mussels and shrimp too peeled and deveined. Even 1 can of clams along with their juice will work too so this seafood combo is endless. If using squid and octopus kindly cook it seperate and set aside in 1 oz of olive oil and 2 cloves of garlic to set aside and only add in at the very end.

Add 2 tbs of capers and 5 Spanish olives along with their juice and add 3 or 4 cups of water. It has to cover the rice and let it come to a boil while still on high heat. Reduce heat to low and let it cook to a simmer for 20 minutes. Stir occationally. I had to repeat this last step last night about at least 1 or 2 more times. This was the red Thai jasmine rice I used and you can buy it at many Asian markets. When I rinsed it that it did not have that much of the starchy water coming off of it. When the liquid is absorbed by the rice then you can shut the heat off and let it remain covered and let stand for at least 20 minutes before eating. This is excellent with strong black coffee to drink. Do not forget to garnish your dish with either fried squid or octopus or use the one in the can with the oil undrained. Cheers.

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