Paella Mia

Two weeks ago, our family grabbed a promo for a staycation to celebrate in advance the birthday of Ayana Grace. It was a nice breather for me to enjoy an overnight out. We had lunch in a Spanish resto so we ordered paella. Well, I guess I craved for more that when we got back home, I still had in my mind a vivid picture of the paella.

Hmmm... anyway, it seemed I had all ingredients on board so nothing else kept me from following my tummy’s desire. 

Here’s what I did. 

Ingredients:

2 cups Jasmine sticky rice

3 pieces Purefoods chorizo bilbao style, sliced thinly and diagonally 

15-20 pcs shrimps, deveined 

2 pcs large squid, sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 pc large tomato, sliced

5 pcs cherry tomatoes, halved

Shitake mushrooms, sliced

1 green bell pepper, sliced

1/2 pack sweet and sour sauce

1/2 half cup green peas

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooking directions:

1. Wash and cook rice in cooker (Doing the short-cut method. Another way to do it is cook the rice with the sautéed ingredients in a pan and bake.) 
2. Fry chorizo. Set aside.
3. In the same oil, fry shrimps. Set aside. 
4. Fry squid. Set aside. 
5. Use the remaining oil to sauté garlic and tomato slices. 
6. Add shitake mushrooms, bell pepper and green peas. 
7. Add sweet and sour sauce.
8. Season with salt and pepper. 
9. Add rice from cooker. Mix with sautéed ingredients.
10. Simmer until rice is completely cooked. 
11. Top with shrimps, chorizo, squid and cherry tomatoes.
12. Serve hot. 

Hmmm... do you like my finished product? You can give it a try! Oooppps... I over-fried the squid. I hope you didn’t notice. But if you did, well, those are not black olives... sorry! Oh, but you can actually add black olives! 

Until now, I still haven’t used saffron to make a legit paella. I also don’t have a paella pan. I just use my stainless steel pan. I hope next time, I get to find saffron from the nearest grocery store... and also get a chance to use an ideal paella pan for baking. That's why I call this "paella-paellahan". 😀

Well, it was difficult for both hubby and Ayana to resist what I served. They found it very tempting, I guess. My mother also asked for a second... no, third serving! I need not say more except “Vamos a comer!”

'Til next recipe blog post!