Seafood Paella

Hey there!

I've been cooking a lot lately, but with not much time to upload pictures and do the blog thing... which is not fun at all!! I love to share new recipes and especially since I've been so encouraged by some of the Daring Bakers bloggers!

I made this recipe last week. It was delicious. You can think that involves a lot of work, but guess what?!?! It's the easiest thing ever!!!!

A long time ago, I was watching one of my favorite shows, "Take home Chef" at TLC and he made this dish and I wanted so bad to do it too, so after making some google work, I found his recipe.

So, here we go:

Seafood Paella

Serves 4

Ingredients:

¼ cup/50 ml olive oil
3 shallots, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon/1.3 g Persian saffron powder
2 cups/375 g long grain white rice
1/2 cup/100 ml dry white wine
1 teaspoon/6 g salt
4 cups/900 ml chicken stock, warmed
1 tomato, seeded, diced
8 black mussels, scrubbed, debearded
8 Manila clams, scrubbed (I couldn't find those, so I just used a can of whole clams)
4 colossal shrimp, halved lengthwise, deveined (with shells)
4 sea scallops
1 tablespoon/about 3 g roughly chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon/15 ml extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon, halved


Method:

Preheat the oven to 425°F/220°C. Heat ¼ cup/50 ml of olive oil in a 12-inch/30-cm-diameter paella pan (a broad, shallow pan with two handles--I used the closest pan I had to this one) over medium heat. Add the shallots and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, thyme and bay leaves, and sauté until the shallots are tender and translucent, about 1 minute.

Sprinkle the saffron powder over the shallot mixture and sauté for 1 minute. Add the rice and stir for 2 minutes or until the pan is quite dry and the rice is coated with oil. Stir in the wine and salt then the warm chicken stock. Stir the rice to distribute it evenly in the pan.

Bring to a simmer over high heat then remove the pan from the heat. Sprinkle the tomatoes over the rice mixture. Nestle the mussels, clams, shrimp and scallops into the rice mixture.Carefully transfer the pan to the oven and bake the paella uncovered for about 35 minutes, or until the rice is tender and the seafood is cooked (discard any mussels and clams that do not open).

Remove the paella from the oven. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil. Squeeze the lemon juice over the paella and serve.

Source: "Take Home Chef" - TLC - Curtis Stone