The second country I am visiting is Spain.

Before I start with the recipe here is a little about Spain:

• Capital: Madrid
• Population: about 46.5 million
• Area: 505 990 km²
• Currency: Euro

For the traditional recipe I chose to cook a paella, this dish originates from the east coast of Spain, more precisely from the city of Valencia. There are many ways to prepare paella. The one I chose to make is a with seafood, chicken and chorizo (spicy cured spanish sausage). One of the important ingredient of paella is rice and it can be a little tough to find the exact proper rice which is called bomba rice. No worries though as you can replace it with arborio rice. Here is my recipe for paealla.

Paella

Ingredients:

• 250g of rice (ideally bomba rice)
• 500g of chicken (breasts or drumsticks or a mix of the two)
• 300g of squid
• one handful of mussels (about 10)
• 6-8 large shrimps
• 1 chorizo
• 1 red bell pepper
• 500g of tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic clove
• 2 doses of saffron
• 500ml of chicken stock
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Directions:

The first step is to prepare everything you will need to cook the paella. If you are using chicken breasts, cut the chicken in about 1 inch cubes. Clean the mussels, slice the chorizo and cut in half slices. Chop the bell pepper. Peal and finely chop the tomatoes. Dice the onion and the garlic.

Clean and cut the squid (if you bought it whole). In order to clean squids, under running cold water, pull the head out and remove the center bone from the top and peel the skin off. Cut and discard everything that is above the small tentacles (including the eyes). Keep the tentacles and pull out the beak which is in the tentacle part. Rinse everything and to finish cut the top part in small pieces. Here is a video that explains how to do that.

Once you are done with the preparation you can then start cooking. Preparing every ingredients in advance helps greatly to be organized and successful in the kitchen.

In a large pan (preferably a paella pan if you have the chance to have one or get one, if not a large wok works) heat olive oil and grill the chicken until golden brown.

Add the squid, onions, tomatoes, bell pepper, garlic, saffron salt and pepper. Cook for 5 minutes while stirring.

After 5 minutes add the rice, chorizo and chicken stock.

Stir everything together. This is the last time you will stir before serving.

Add the mussels and shrimps, bring to the boil and let simmer on medium to low heat for 30-35 minutes.

With a spoon check that the rice is cooked, the rice should have formed slightly brown crust on the bottom. Serve plates with a little bit of all the ingredients on each plate.

Notes:

You can make paella using rabbit instead of chicken. With or without seafood in it. Adding different seafood like clams.

¡Buen provecho!