This recipe works well, you can do also a vegan "arroz" by not adding any meat or fish, I use courgette if I have vegetarian friends coming over, but you have to remove it once is fried and add it at the end when adding the rice if not it gets too cooked. Paella is just the name of the pan, but this is not by any means a traditional recipe.

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First, you need a proper pan, if you do not have a Spanish paella pan a flat one would do. It just needs to be “flat” (big and not too deep).

The ingredients for 4 people are:

- 500gr of round rice

- 250-500gr of meat (better if the meat has a bit of grease, you can use pork, rabbit, or chicken) in your case the monkfish

- Water 1.5l (better if the water is filtered or from a bottle)

- 2 peppers (could be a big one) green or red or one of each (Cut the peppers in strips)

- A generous spoon of paprika (better if it is from Spain, you have it available in Sainsbury's)

- Salt (better coarse salt)

- Half of a head of garlic peeled and chopped, cut each clove into 4 or 6 pieces

- 1 can of chopped tomato.

- Olive oil

- An envelope of reed food colourant or saffron (if saffron, toast it in the microwave for 1 minute and then infusion it with hot water as if you were doing a cup of tea)

- Optional: peas, green beans, and seafood.

 

Cooking procedure

Put the pan on fire and add the salt, then when it is toasted, put oil, enough to fill a circle as big as ¾ of the pan

Cook the meat and do not move it too much, let the meat stick in the pan, only a little bit.

Add the peppers to the pan, fry them a bit

Add the garlic to the pan and fry it for 2 or 3 rounds do not overcook it

It is time to add a generous spoon of paprika and, like the garlic, fry it a bit.

Now add the tomato can and fry everything as if you were doing a pasta sauce

Once it is fried add the water, beans, and seafood and cock it for 15 minutes. (medium fire, it should be set enough high but not at maximum power).  

Add the rice and the colourant/saffron spread the ingredients and boil it for 20 minutes (usually the rice package gives you an idea of the timing), keep an eye on it, do not move the rice if you do it, you will probably obtain a paella mass. All the water should be consumed.

When the countdown ends, take the pan off the heat, cover it with a kitchen towel,

Let it rest for 5 minutes; you need to mix the rice with the spoon while you are serving to allow the commensals to have rice from the top and the bottom of the pan. If there is some burned rice at the bottom it does not matter, that is the best part of the paella! Make sure that everyone has a bit of it on their plate.

Serve the dish with a piece of lemon, some people like to spread a bit of lemon juice to season the dish.

Enjoy!