Edible Art

 Seafood Paella | Cooking Time: 1 Hr 30 mins | Difficulty: Intermediate

“Eating is a necessity but cooking is an art”

Cooking is not my forte, but cooking is an art, so it is part of my life, too!

Cooking is about creating an artwork for your loved ones. And cooking is about transforming ordinary ingredients into extraordinary dishes. I am not a dabster and I’m not capable of inventing my own recipe. What I usually do is to derive a few recipes online, compare, mix and match whatever I deem opportune. And the creation is usually not too disappointing.

“Paella is a rice dish from Spain that originated in the fields of a region called Valencia in eastern Spain. Valencian people prepared the dish with whatever ingredients they had on hand – rabbit, snails and vegetables.                                                                                      spanishfood.about.com

		Here's my version of Paella:

Ingredients 
500g chicken fillet

Soy sauce and sesame oil

Potato starch

Olive oil

1 large onion (Finely chopped)

1 clove of fresh parsley (Finely chopped)

6 rashers of bacon

2 litres of chicken stock

1 large pinch of saffron

1 tablespoon of ground paprika

Rice (I used 6 cups)

King prawns (shell on)

Mussels

Fresh button mushroom

French bean

Cherry tomatoes

Lemon

Method

1. Preheat the oven.

             

2. Cut the chicken fillet into bite-size then season with soy sauce and sesame oil. Dredge the chicken in potato starch and fry until golden brown. Ensure that the flour pulverulent is not too thick nor too thin. We can't get the nice golden brown colour if the coating is too thin. After which, transfer the chicken to a baking tray and place in oven for about 20 minutes. 

                

3. In the same pot, fry the bacon until browned and crispy. Remove from the pot and set aside for later use. 

4. Again, in the same pot, saute the onion, garlic, cherry tomatoes and parsley. 

5. Meanwhile, heat the chicken stock.

             

6. Infuse half of the chicken stock with saffron. Add the ground paprika, rice and infused stock to the pot. Deglaze the brown bits in the bottom of the pot. By scraping the brown bits until they dissolve into the sauce, you can transform them into a delicious sauce. Leave to cook for about 20 minutes, and stir occasionally.

7. After 20 minutes, add the remaining stock, french beans, mushrooms, prawns, and mussels. Cook further until the rice and seafood are cooked.  

            

8. When done, add the cooked chicken, crispy bacon (cut into thin strips) and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with lemon wedges for squeezing over. 



Piece of advice:

• Do not add more oil to fry the bacon like I did because bacon shall liquefy fats while frying. I ended up discard half of the excess oil. 
• 2 litres of chicken stock is way too much for 6 cups of rice. I finished up all the chicken stock resulting the end product was too moist. 
• It was a boo-boo to saute and leave the french bean and bacon to cook from step 4 till the end because they ended up vanished into thin air. 

I received a bon mot for this not-so-perfect-mushy-rice which goes: Practice makes perfect!

Overall, it was a first attempt and the end product is quite pleasing. It is not too crappy nor awful, and it is a convenient-yet-delicious recipe for the whole family. Even picky kids take it too!