To Grandmother’s house I go! I have a family event coming up very soon (on my dad’s side) and I’m so excited to go and visit everyone. It just happens to be right near my mom’s parents place so I’m going to spend a few days with them, beachside, I might had. All the excitement.
Every time my mom’s side of the family gets together, my grandma wants to make us paella. We used to always do this so it’s understandable. BACKTRACKING: My mom is from Colombia and she moved here, to the US, when she was small. Therefore, her side of the family speaks Spanish and eats lots of food with Latin origins, like Paella. It’s truly a Spanish dish, like from Spain, of rice, seafood and shrimp.
Back to this paella: We’ve always started with a specific rice-box-mix for paella and added our own seafood, chicken and veggies to the mix to bump it up. A sort of semi-homemade solution. However after every single person in my family has been diagnosed with their own host of food allergies, this box mix no longer works for us and put a total squash on my grandma’s paella plans.
So this time I set out to find a recipe we can make from-scratch and sans allergens, hooray! So in my search for the perfect paella recipe, I saw so many variations. Some had sausage, some had a whole bunch of different seafood bits and pieces, some had more veggies, others had none. But I went with something as similar to the recipe my family used for so long, kept it simple and made it using portions for two servings (dinner for a couple, or one dinner and one lunch for me, per usual) but can be easily multiplied to serve more, whether you need four, six or even eight servings!
- 2 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ of a sweet onion, chopped
- 2–4 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ cup brown rice
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 pinch saffron threads (I found some at Trader Joes)
- 1-6.5 ounce can of clams
- 6 cleaned and cooked jumbo shrimp
- 1 medium tomato, chopped
- ¼ cup chopped flat Italian parsley
- Salt and pepper
- ½ lemon, quartered
- Cut the chicken thighs into bite size pieces and coat with the paprika and salt.
- In a Dutch oven, paella pan or skillet heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and sear.
- Add the onion and cook until soft and aromatic. Then add in the garlic and rice for just about one minute, stirring constantly.
- Add the broth and saffron threads. Stir, bring to a boil and stir again. Reduce the heat to medium-low to maintain a simmer and cover. Cook for about 35 minutes.
- After the 35 minutes is up, tuck the clams and shrimp into the rice and mix in the tomato. Cook for ten more minutes, covered.
- Next, add in the parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Plate and serve with lemon slices.
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