My favourite paella
As a young boy, the idea of meat and fish together in one dish never made sense to me. But once I tried paella the combination of textures and smoky flavours completely won me over. It's one harmonious, exciting, stomach-pleasing smasher of a dish. Some locals will say you don't add chorizo, but because I love it, I'm adding it here. You can pick up a proper paella pan (like the one in the picture) at most department stores, but a large shallow pan about 30cm across will also work a treat. Without question this is one of Spain's hero dishes. Although incredibly flexible and delicious, it was never intended to be as visual and flamboyant a dish as it is. It was invented by farmers, grabbing whatever bits of meat, veg and fish they had available to them and using rice to bring it all together. Over time it's been refined and claimed by all sorts of people around Spain as their own. That's the great thing about paella, you can make it your own by taking the principle of it and adjusting it to embrace whatever ingredients are in season and around you.
Estimated Nutrition (whole recipe, rough)
Counts 16 of 18 ingredients — the other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and contribute nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume — 16 portions →
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Sausage | 100g cooked | 301 |
| Pork | 100g cooked | 242 |
| Rice | 1 cup cooked (158g) white | 206 |
| Chicken | 100g cooked | 165 |
| Olive Oil | 1 tbsp (14g) | 119 |
| Shrimp | 100g cooked | 99 |
| Onion | 1 medium (110g) | 44 |
| Bell Pepper | 1 medium (119g) | 31 |
| Tomato | 1 medium (123g) | 22 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Chili | 1 tsp (2.7g) | 8 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Garlic | 1 clove (3g) | 4 |
| Parsley | 1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g) | 1 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Saffron | not in our table | 0 |
| Squid | not in our table | 0 |
Totals for the whole recipe, adding one typical portion per ingredient — listed above. Quantities in the recipe are not counted, so this is a rough guide only — not suitable for medical or dietary planning.
Ingredients
- olive oil
- 2 raw iberico chorizo sausages, approximately 250g in total, thickly sliced
- 300 g higher-welfare pork belly, skin removed, cut into 1cm pieces
- 1 green pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
- 1 red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 small bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped, stalks finely chopped
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 good pinch saffron
- 400 g clams or mussels, from
- , ask your fishmonger, scrubbed clean and debearded
- 300 g paella rice
- 200 g jarred red peppers in oil, drained and torn into pieces
- 400 g tinned chopped tomatoes
- 1 litre organic chicken or vegetable stock
- 12 large prawns, from
- , ask your fishmonger, shells on
- 150 g squid, from
- , ask your fishmonger, cleaned and finely sliced
- 150 g green beans, sliced very thinly at an angle
- 1 lemon, cut into wedges