Paella Recipe (Spanish)



Ok here are some of the culinary works I have tried and tested. We had a paella fix 2 months ago in the garden.

The paella fix was for 10 pax as a starter but as main course, could probably feed 6 nicely. My paella pan diameter is around 40cm. We have a special stove that is for paella, the gas fire cooks the pan evenly. Wink

Here's the recipe

Spanish Paella recipe - Paella with seafood and chicken

You will need
3/4 kg of prawns, take out the prawn heads and dump into a stock pot
1 white meat fish (snapper, garoupa, monk fish), fillet the fish and throw the head and bones into a stock pot
8 pcs of chicken thighs de-skinned and chop to bite sized pieces
2 medium sized squid, cleaned and chopped into strips, throw the tentacles into the stock pot
3 cloves garlic minced
1 bay leaf
1 celery (optional)
1 spanish onion diced
a bunch of green asparagus cut into strips (can replace with 2 green peppers or a cup of cooked garden peas)
2 large tomatoes peeled, de seeded and chopped
500g short grain rice
1 1/4 litres hot seafood stock
large pinch of saffron - wrap the saffron with paper and toast it lightly over low stove fire until fragrance is apparent, then melt it in a little stock (make sure you don't burn the saffron, it's very easy to get burnt! Throw away burnt saffron!)
small roasted red pepper cut into strips (optional)

Firstly, to prevent panic, prepare everything prior to cooking.

1. To start, make the 1 1/4 litres of hot seafood stock by boiling the fish bone, squid tentacles, prawn heads with an onion, celery, bay leaf. Sieve the stock. (You can cheat by adding a fish stock cube to make a flavourful stock if you feel that your stock is not fishy enough)

2. Heat up the paella pan or large flat skillet (do not use wok for paella it doesn't work!) in high fire, (here's a trick) add a handful of rock salt to the paella pan and stir fry the salt on the pan for a few minutes and then remove the salt completely and throw away. Apparently this trick gives prevents the rice from getting burnt!

3. Now add some olive to the pan and fry the asparagus until tender. Then fry the headless prawns till pink and remove. Then fry the chicken pieces in olive oil to brown them and remove.

4. Now add to the pan the minced onion, garlic and the peppers and let them cook for a few minutes. Now add the squid and chopped tomatoes. Add a little more oil if required.

5. When the oil reappears on the tomatoes, stir in the short grain rice and allow to fry until the grains become a little opaque. Add the hot stock cup by cup and stir to distribute rice evenly. Add the browned chicken and saffron. Stir to mix well, then turn down the heat to minimum and leave alone - do not stir again, but occasionally shake the pan to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom.

6. When the rice is almost cooked (taste the bottom layer and top layer rice), add the prawns and asparagus on top, shake the pan again. If the bottom layer of the rice is rock hard, then you need to add stock to keep it cooking. It's very tricky stage...

If bottom layer of rice is tenderish, but top layer is only slightly al dente (looking like the foto I posted above), do not add more stock in case the rice at the bottom explodes and becomes mushy. At this stage, when all the liquid has evaporated, you can juz turn off the heat and cover the paella pan with a sheet of newspaper and leave it to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Paella actually tastes more aromatic when eaten cooled so don't worry if you can't finish it, drink some more wine and eat spoonfuls later..

Serves 6.


Daikon and Salmon Pickle (Japanese)

Here's a Japanese recipe which I have followed from Yasuko Fukuoka of "Japanese Food & Cooking". She is also a good fren of Yoko Ono.

You will need a fat and short daikon : about 4 inch long with 2.5 inch wide diameter. Peel the skin completely, chop the top and bottom off so they are flat. Then slice very thin rounds of the daikon with a mandolin or a vegetable cutter like the way you slice thin potato crisps (rounded thin slices, not strips!).

Soak the thinly sliced daikon in a shallow container with 2 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of rice vinegar, and add a 2 inch square piece of dried konbu which has been snipped into 1 cm strips. Mix and rub the daikon gently with hands. Cover and leave in fridge for 1 hour.

The daikon will soak up the salt and vinegar, it's got high propensity to absorb flavors. Drain the daikon & squeeze out the excess liquid. The degree of saltiness will depend on the oriignal water content of the daikon, taste a little bit of daikon, and if it's still too salty for your taste, then rinse the daikon slices with running water for 30 secs, then drain and carefully squeeze out the excess liquid again.

Cut about 50gm of thinly sliced salmon into 1.5 inch squares. Taking once slice of the round dailkon, put on top of it a slice of salmon, then sandwich the salmon with another piece of daikon. Keep stacking up the daikon and salmon like this (like a tall hamburger) until all the salmon is used up. The quantity is just enough to make one stack of pickled daikon layered with salmon.

Now comes the wierd part. Place the daikon layered with salmon in a shallow container, cover, then leave to pickle at room temp for up to one day.

The next day, to serve, arrange the daikon slices with salmon one by one round on a plate, and sprinkle 1/2 tsp of white poppy seeds on top.. sounds yummy?

This is how they look like :

Hey T, did you actualy prepare those on your own?! I thought earlier that you're just gonna cut and paste some of your favourite local recipes like nasi lemak or chicken rice from another website. But since you're working for UN and all, I guess I really should've expected something more international.

Thanks for going thru all that trouble, but it seems slightly tedious to cook alone, no? I think I'll invite friends over to gimme a hand. Over two days for the daikon and salmon pickle. Preparing the food should be half the fun 2 If I do try em, I'll let u know.

I know how to make Paella too! I love it so much.

Here is Chilled Oreo Cheesecake. Got the recipe from Kuali. Tried it and it turnt out really good.

hmmm im hungry now

Hi folks! I love cooking local dishes too... my dream is to run a food blog someday! Here's a tried and tested Mee Rebus gravy recipe for you folks, don't be put off by the amount of work, its really sedap! I'll take you through step-by-step :


Mee Rebus

Rempah
Grind the following ingredients into a paste (rempah) with a machine or mortar and pestle :
- 1 inch galangal (blue ginger)
- 1 inch old ginger
- 15 shallots (small red onions)
- 4 gloves of garlic
- 2 tsp pounded belachan
- 3 tbsp yellow soya bean paste
- 2 tbsp coriander powder
- 3 tbsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp cummin powder
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
Heat up the wok and add half cup of cooking oil to fry the paste till fragant (about 5 to 10 mins), set the rempah aside.



Prawn Stock
There are two ways to make this, add a couple of Knorr prawn stock cube in 1.5 ltr boiling water.
Or the traditional way is to buy 1 kg of fresh medium prawns, peel their heads off, pound the prawn shells and fry them with 1 tbsp of oil, then add about 1.5 ltr water and let it boil for sometime and reduce til stock looks pinky and taste prawny . Then sieve out the prawn shells and put the prawn stock back on the stove. You can also cook your fresh prawns in the stock for about 5 mins and then remove them to be used later as garnish.

Mee Rebus Gravy
Now comes the interesting part. Add 400gm of mashed sweet potatoes into the stock and stir til well mixed. (You will need to first boil the deskinned sweet potatoes til they are soft and mashed it separately.) Then you add the fried Rempah paste and 2 stalks of lemon grass (if you can find lemon grass in your area, otherwise, can be omitted) and let it cook for 10 mins on medium heat. Then add 4 tbsp sugar and salt to the gravy to taste. The gravy is ready, keep it under low heat while you prepare your noodles and garnish.

If you can find fresh oily yellow noodles, just blanch them in hot water for one minute to cook and strain. If you can't get fresh yellow noodles, then use pancit noodles. Blanch some beansprouts for 1 min in hot water and strain. Cut some hard boiled eggs. Slice your cooked prawns. If not using fresh prawns, you can substitute with fried dried flat shrimps (just fry them lightly in oil till crispy). Slice thinly some fried tofu (tau kua). Slice small limes and green chillies.

Serve a portion of yellow noodles in individual plates, scoop gravy over yellow noodles, and garnish with above ingredients and a dash of Kecap Manis if you have. Sedap!!!

If the mee rebus gravy is too much for one person, you can freeze it in portions to be defrosted and added to your noodles anytime you feel like having a mee rebus fix!


Courtesy of Sambal Belachan cookbook




Post the foto of the paella and cheesecake next time, Caramel. Photos are motivational. I baked some Kueh Bangkit recently with a short-cut recipe, I'll post the recipe and foto soon!

^mmmm look s good id take out the eggs but look YUMMY

hey wat is Knorr prawn stock cube?

They are stock cubes or granules from the company called Knorr. Here's a sample of their ikan bilis :

I think it is the brand of the Prawn Stock Cube.

waaaaaa....
sedap nYerrr...
lapa~lapa~
huhuhuhu

Waaaa....i am sure gonna test the mee rebus recipe. Thanx....the first one one looks good too but i dun think io can manage cooking such a thing...

eh eh...kat atas nie fishy org baru ke? ader orang baru la...

Have you ever tried making Soya Bean Milk yourself? It's dead easy. And when you are good at it, try to make hot soya beancurd next! They call it tau foo fah in cantonese.

Soya Bean Milk

To make fresh soya bean milk, you'll need a blender, like one of those for blending smoothies or margarities. Just soak 3/4 cup of soya bean in water overnight. Next day, strain the soaked beans, remove any debris or stones. Then add the beans to the blender with 1 ltr of water. Blend it very well till smooth.

In a big pot, place a muslin cloth over the pot - you can use baby diaper cloth they are made of muslin! - and carefully pour the ground beans into the center of the muslin. Carefully fold up the sides of the muslin cloth and squeeze the soya milk into the pot. You will get roughly 3/4 ltr of thick soya milk. (Stage 1)

If you like your soya milk lighter, you can add another half liter of water to the soya bean in the muslin and squeeze the muslin again. It's just like squeezing coconut milk.



Boil the freshly squeezed soya milk on a stove until it reaches boiling point and starts rising up, lower the heat immediately to a simmer, simmer for 5 mins. Then switch off.



Syrup

Prepare your syrup. Simply boil 5-6 tbs of white sugar or palm sugar (if you have) with 1 and 1/2 cup of water in a pot with 2 pcs of pandan leave if you can find these leaves, if not, nevermind the leaves. Simmer for 5 mins and voila! Juz mix your soya milk with the amount of syrup to the desired sweetness and drink!

Tau Foo Fah

To make the hot tau foo fah, you will need a special caking ingredient called Lactone or its scientific name Glucuno-Delta-Lactone (GDL). This is a type of derivative from citric acid which is used to solidify cheese and is now the standard coagulant for soya beancurd. Ask for Lactone in bakery shops. If you find it, you are in luck!

Here's how you make the soya beancurd. First prepare a mixture of 1/2 tsp lactone with 1 tsp cornflour and 30ml of hot water. When you have reached Stage 1 where you have boiled and simmered the Thick soya milk for 5 mins (do not dilute your soya milk), turn off the fire and remove pot from the stove. Immediately add the lactone/cornflour/water mixture, stir GENTLY once or twice to spread the lactone mixture evenly, cover the pot immediately and leave the soya milk to set for at least 10-15 mins.

The soya bean curd will be curdled and soft. Just scoop desired amount and add syrup and serve! Really easy!


Photos courtesy of makantime.com

There is actualy a machine that can make soy bean milk...but it's quite tricky to make a delicious soy bean milk..

OMG Tau Foo Far! malaccan will be so happy once he sees that recipe.

I hope you guys will try to make the soya bean milk and tau foo fah. I know there's a machine that makes this, but I tell you it's not that difficult to make it from scratch by yourself. You can even make the tau foo fah by boiling tetrapacket unsweetened soya milk, just find the coagulant (lactone) and you are there!!

Anyone got their favourite nasi lemak sambal belachan chilli to share?? Thats the crucial ingredient.

omg
looks very difficult to make...... can't i just buy it

hey my aunt makes this its real GOOD!!!!! kekekeke now i know how it done

Thank you thank you thank you.
I've had to resort to this all this while.

mmm food, hungry now

Inspired by the post of the mee rebus recipe, I've gone and cooked it tonite, here's the foto of the mee rebus that's now sitting snugly in my gullet :

OMG show how to MAKE!!!!! ...and is egg the only meat in there.....i hope so

OMG the pictures of food shown are making me well hungry.. grrr

Learnt to make these with a fren from Malta, italian cuisine reigns in Malta. He brought over the fresh squid ink in packages for the black ink sauce. Flavor of the ink was so sea-fresh, we didn't even need to add salt into the sauce!

Tomato basil sauce
Make your basic fresh tomato sauce with 1 finely chopped onion slow fried til transparent in 4tbs of olive oil, then 700gm of roma tomatoes (skin peeled and deseeded). You can add a dollop of tomato puree and a tsp of sugar, and simmer for 30-40 mins till thick. Remove sauce from heat, add basil leaves (fresh), salt and ground black pepper to taste. Divine aroma of fresh basil!

Nero di Seppia sauce
Slow fry 1 finely chopped big spanish onion and sliced garlic in 6 tbs of olive oil till soft and transparent, add 600gm of squid (cleaned and cut into cubes) and simmer for 15 min, the squid takes on a yellowish tinge from the onions, then squeeze 4 packets of black ink sauce, stir into the squid and continue simmering until the sauce has thickened, approx another 15 mins or so.

Boil linguine in lots of salted water for 4 persons (100gm each) and separate linquine to two batches for the tomato & basil, and nero di seppia. Serve as a starter!

this is reminding me of the mee rebus in kampung baru...pedas but the taste is heavenly...

tangawizi...why dun u try cook mee jawa... it's good....

Sure thing, post the recipe please if u've tried and tested the mee jawa recipe, ya?

If not, you can try the recipe below, but I dunno if it works and taste good.


MEE JAWA

Ingredients:

3 onions (bawang besar) - blended
3 tbs blended chilli
30g dried prawn - blended
2 tbs salted soya beans (tauchu) - blended
2 tins of coconut milk ( santan from 2 biji kelapa)
2 mugs of water
1 packet of egg noodle (mee kuning)
cucumber
eggs
beansprouts
beancurd (tauhu)
potatoes
fried shallots (bawang goreng)
salt and sugar

Method:

1. Fry the onions and chilli till fragrant (pecah minyak).

2. Add the dried prawns and stir till well-mixed.

3. Then add the salted soya beans (tauchu) and still till well mixed.

4. When everything is well fried up (must yield a dark red color mix), pour in the coconut milk and water.

5. Don't forget to stir often as you don't want the coconut milk to curdle.

6. Once the gravy starts to boil, turn the heat to medium and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. It it's too thick, add more water. If it's too watery, simmer till it becomes quite thick.

7. Add salt and sugar to taste. It should taste salty and sweet all at once.

8. While the gravy is simmering, boil the eggs and potatoes, celur (what's celur in English?) the beansprouts, fry the beancurds and cut the cucumber into the size of match sticks. Cut the boiled eggs into wedges or slice it (which ever way you prefer, doesn't matter), dice the boiled potates and slice the friend beancurd.

9. To eat, pour the gravy over your noodle and garnish it with the eggs, potatoes, beansprouts, cucumber, beancurd and fried shallot.

10. Slurrrppppp all the way. Ahhhhhh... sungguh nikmat rasanye, hehehhe...

^mmm....my mom cooks a simple version of mee jawa..something that could be prepared in a short time....as snacks...replacing maggi mee ...we dun take maggi mee,it's unhealthy..

First..boil some beef. Then fry some shallots and garlic then add the beef stock. Then add some typical chilli sauce ............and that's all and serve the mee jawa with eggs,kangkung, sliced beef, fried onions and other garnishes u can think off...

^this is just brief description of the recipe...dun try it yet..

Here's my char siew pau I made last year, it's quite tricky to handle the dough so I won't bother posting the recipe coz I know u guys would juz go down the road and order the paus from the hawkers!



And here's a foto of the haggis we ate in Edinburgh last year. In a hooe-sky (whiskey) sauce. Can anybody tell us what haggis is truly made of?

Haggis is made the stomach of sheeps...they fill the stomach with meat...it's a like big bloated sausage...

Aaarrgghhhh!!! - I think haggis is over-rated. That's what I tell all my Scots friend.


You made those pau by yourself? What's wrong with you?! Is the UN paying you so that you can 'goyang kaki' and just cook to your hearts' content?

Yes, I made those paos. Do u think it's un-UN like to enjoy cooking?

Eh no lah. I just have this image of you strruggling to make ends meet under difficult condition like Dr Carter in ER. You know.. when she dumped Abby and hooked up with the Thandie Newton character instead.
I bet get-togethers at your workplace must be a culinary delight huh. So many food from all over the world.
How do you eat your pau? You peel off the outer skin or not? I don't bother.

those are the weirdest looking paos ive ever seen tangawizi. no offense. 2 . but im sure it tastes alright

WE GOT OUR PAU MAKER!!!!

yayy!! now we just have to provide him with the 'meat', and be hush about it......

so are these spanish dishes from malay

Make me some!!!

The sauce of the best mee rebus in KL at kampung baru is brownish...i wonder what makes it so....maybe its the key to the its spectacular flavour.... probably not soy sauce

The mee rebus rempah contains turmeric, coriander and cummin powder which produces a brownish spice paste. You also got to yellow soya bean paste (tau cheo). When you add the prawn stock and sweet potato mash, you will get a yellowish brown sauce.

I am gonna cook mee siam next.

The paus looked wierd coz it was the first and last time I tried making them. Too much work!

You cooking tonight?

Post some good pics....

what is mee siam by the way?

Maybe it in a another name in Malaysia.

Not tonite, this weekend... Mee Siam is probably influenced by Thailand. I think it's called something else in Malaysia...come to think of it. I'll find out and let you know...



I can make tau sar pau (red bean paste) instead of 'meat' for you?



Hi viety, some of dishes here are spanish/italian and some dishes are malay or singaporean.. can you post any tried and tested vietnamese recipes? I heard of a special noodle in Hanoi which uses an insect dropping as aphrodisiac, ever tried it?



Reiko, come to nairobi and i can cook for you!

^ Tangawizi...why are u in Nairobi?

BTW u frequent here...the internet connection there must be good...

Forrestcat, I checked with my Singaporean kakis and they said 'mee siam' is still called 'mee siam' in Malaysia. Do you not have mee siam in Sabah (isn't that where u are from?)?

Here's a couple of recipes for mee siam at this kuali site, the first recipe is the one popular in SG coz it has that spicey sweet sour taste from the tamarind.

http://kuali.com/recipes/viewrecipe.asp?r=2508
http://kuali.com/recipes/viewrecipe.asp?r=1152

Yes, I have a satellite downlink so connection is pretty neat .. I work here

HEY COOL SITE!!!!!!!!

Chilli Crab - Singapore's National Dish (specially for caramel)

Take 2 live mud crabs, put them in the freezer for a couple of hours so that they faint and die in a swoon. Take it out and clean it well. You can steam the crab peices or stir fry them with just a little oil for a healthier dish. Most restaurants will stir fry the crabs in lots of oil to pre-cook it, but steaming is just as good and healthier. Remove the crab from the wok, and

Fry some chopped garlic and ginger in oil till fragrant, add a big dollop of rempah (ground chillies, onions with garlic), 2 tablespoon of yellow fermented soya bean paste and 1 tsp of dark soya sauce. Fry the paste till fragrant, add 6 tablespoons of tomato ketchup with 1 tbs of sugar, a cup of water with 1.5 tsp of cornflour mixed in. When sauce is thickening, add the crab pieces into the sauce, mix well and cover for a few minutes for the crab to soak up the sauce. Crack an egg over the crab, add a tsp of rice vinegar over the crabs, throw a few chopped spring onions or coriander leaves on top. Serve piping hot with bread to soak up the chilli crab sauce..

Shiokadoodledoo!!

Itik Golek

Ingredient
1 whole duck (or chicken)
2 grated coconuts
1 whole garlic
4 tbsp cumin powder
1 tbsp pepper
Tamarind juice to taste
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste

Filling:
1 hard-boiled egg
Duck or chicken liver, gizzard
1 whole onion
1 potato
2 tsp oil

Method
Boil and skin potato. Clean liver, gizzard, and cut into small pieces.

Put aside.

Pound garlic and mix with cumin powder, pepper, and add a little water.

Heat oil in pot and fry the mixed ingredients. Add salt and a little water if mixture gets too thick. Add gizzard and liver. Finally add onion, boiled potato and hard-boiled egg. Remove and cool.

Clean the duck thoroughly both inside and outside and drain. Prepare sufficient coconut milk to cover the whole duck.

Stuff the duck with filling and sew the bottom opening of the duck and top opening at the neck.

Fill up a sufficiently big pot with coconut milk. Add to it the balance of the spice mixture and mix well with coconut milk and boil until sauce thickens. Add salt, sugar and tamarind juice. Cook until oil surfaces.

Take duck out of the pot and grill awhile in oven.

To serve, remove the thread at the sewn parts and pour sauce over duck.

did u cook the duck, IM? post a foto of it if you can?

I made some sweet meats yesterday, they call them 'bakwas' or barbecued pork, a snack usually served during the chiinese new year. Absolutely delicious!



Recipe available from this SG blogger.

Wow.. all are my favourite food... especially the Mee Rebus and Cili Crabs. Yummy..

SInce I have been cooking recenltly, let me share some simple recipes..

Ayam Masak Kicap..

Cumin powder
Thick sweet soy sauce
tomato sauce
garlic
onions
blended dried chilli
fried chicken

First add a teaspoon cumin powder and garlic. After 1 minute, add the blended dried chilli, tomato sauce and the sweet soy sauce. Let the sauce simmer for 5 minutes, then add the chicken and onions. U may add salt if u want to but it the soy sauce should be enuff. The sauce should be thick and sweet.

Nah, I just copied and paste the recipe from another source.

It's quite cool weather at the moment, so I made this dessert. This was great! It's called Tau Suan in Singapore. Just soak 1 cup of split mung beans in water for 30mins. Then boil the beans with 100gm of sugar in 1 liter of water for 20 mins. Add 2 tbsp of potato starch and stir the beans till it thickens. Serve hot with crispy crullers. You can add pandan leaves to the beans if you can find them where you are.


Here's a pretty tricky snack to make - Crispy Crullers or Yew Char Kwey as it's popularly known in Malaysia and Singapore.

Here is my YCK recipe :

Ingredients (when room temp is about 20 degrees celsius)
600g all purpose flour
2.5 tsp ammonia bicarbonate
2 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp alum
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 cups water
oil for frying

For this recipe, the room temp shd be abt 20 degrees, if the temp is below 20 degree, reduce the ammonia, alum and baking soda by about 20%.

Mix the water with the ammonia, baking soda, alum and salt. U shd hear a sizzling sound.

Add the flour and mix well. Knead the mixture with fist, if it sticks to your hands, dip some water on hand and continue to knead for 5 minutes. Cover the dough with a wet cloth and set aside for 30 mins.

After 30 mins, knead the dough again, then set it aside for another 30mins.

After 30 mins more, knead the dough again into a pillow shape, rub some cooking oil on the surface so it won't dry out, wrap the dough in cling film and place it in a warm place (I put it into my airing cabinet). Set aside for 4-5 hours. If it's warm place like my airing cabinet, 4 hrs is enough.

Put the dough on a floured board, don't knead it. Draw out a lump and flatten the dough into a long piece about 8cm long and 0.6cm thick. Use a knife to cut into 1.5cm wide strips. The dough will expand in the hot oil, so don't cut the dough strips too long - 8cm is okay but the dough was very very elastic so none of my strips fulfilled the 8cm requirement, as you can see in my foto below.

Pick up one strip and stack it on top of another, use a chopstick (floured) and press it down the middle of the two strips to stick them together making a dent length wise.

You need a helper, one person to deep fry while you make the strips.

Gently pick up the ends of each strip and drop it into the hot oil, use chopsticks to turn the YCK continuously until it is golden brown.

This quantity made alot of YCK, we ate them with tau suan, then rojak, then with coffee ..and still had leftovers in the freezer for the occasional rojak snack!