A quick paella made from miscellaneous leftovers.
This is where WDC cooking comes into its own.
I have just made a paella as good as I have ever cooked – but it was created from a mash of leftovers and took all of 10 minutes. The leftovers came from: the moules from last night; the asparagus risotto from the night before; the rice I made three nights before and a sauce I made from tomatoes leftover from various salads. I still had one chorizo left from last weeks’ tapas.
This was my list of leftovers. You will have your own; you need leftover rice as a base, maybe leftover chicken or pork, some bacon and onion, pepper, a tomato. If you add smoked paprika to your leftover pork – or bacon – it will taste of chorizo – or at least Spanish. A tomato chopped and fried in a pan with some olive oil and tomato paste will make a good sauce. Chopped parsley will add a finishing touch.
For my paella, I chopped a shallot and green chilli, sliced the chorizo and fried it all in a wok. After a couple of minutes I added a spoonful of the sauce and the liquor from the moules, with some oregano and smoked paprika. I let this cook for a minute, then I put in the two rices – I had about a cup of each.
(The risotto gave the dish the impression it had been cooked over time, like a paella, but the other rice was ‘easy cook’ with very separate grains – this helped it from turning into a mush.)
I cooked the rice for a couple of minutes and then tossed in the mussels and let it heat for just a couple more minutes and garnished with parsley and lemon.
If I didn’t tell anybody – they would never know the difference.