Full disclaimer, this is where the pescatarian nature of this project really comes into play, so if you’re not a fan of looking at things with tentacles, this may not be the recipe for you!
It would be impossible to make food from Spain, and not have paella on the list. This was a delicious rice dish that tested more culinary skill than anticipated!
Ah, the return of the giant Spanish onions from Get Fresh! A few of these ingredients we managed to pick up from very random places, but they all worked out well. The fish stock pots were gifted from a family member who had a Degusta box, and the Paellero paella spice mix was from TK Maxx of all places! It’s always worth looking in unexpected places for ingredients that you may not find anywhere else.
This paella recipe was from TasteAtlas, who adapted it from La Tienda. Naturally, we did not follow either recipe exactly, but did make our own seafood based paella using their recipes as a reference.
The first unprecented challenge for this recipe, was preparing the whole octopus that we’d managed to get from Morrisons, due to them not having any squid that day. A quick YouTube video later and we managed to remove all the parts that needed to go, and we were ready to start! We won’t lie though, it was pretty gross.
While we were borrowing a paella pan (paellera), it was a little too small for the amount we were making, so a bigger one in future would be ideal to help get the slightly crispy bottom that a classic paella has. In the meantime, we used a larger pan to begin the dish.
There were quite a few steps to the recipe, which did add a little bit of complexity, but if we had equipment of the right proportions it would have been a lot easier! Not to mention a lot less washing up – always a winner.
The best way we found to navigate this was to cook the bulk of the ingredients in the paellera and make the stock in the saucepan.
With the octopus and prawns cooked, it was time to add the rice and starting putting the paella all together. Eventually we were able to start cooking the full paella within just one pan, which really allowed the flavours to mix in with each other and it smelled amazing!
After letting it cook through, simmer and thicken, the paella was finally ready!
We absolutely loved this paella and will be adding it to our recipe rotation! It’s also a great one for entertaining as we were able to make a lot and it looked incredible.
Of course if you’re not a seafood fan, there are plenty of options still available! Swap the fish stock for vegetable stock , and a mixture of peppers and chunky veg such as courgette would be perfect in this dish.
Please let us know if you give this or any paella variation a go, we’d love to see it!
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