Sunday, April 03, 2011

Portugese Sea Food Rice

A while back, Shyja  along with some colleagues were invited home by Portuguese friends for lunch. One of the highlights was a sea food rice which Shyja could not stop raving about. She kept pestering me to cook something similar. So after a few searches on Google followed by some calls to her friend, I have the following recipe.

The recipe is based on the recipe listed here along with a few tips from Shyja's friend.

The recipe calls for a variety of rice used in Portugal. Basmati will not do for this dish since the final form is rice in a broth. Basmati will I suspect turn into squishy mass in such a case. Since I couldn't get my hands on the exact variety of Portuguese rice, I had to settle on Spanish Paella rice instead. This in my opinion is a very good substitution.

Ingredients

  • 1 onion - chopped fine
  • 4 cloves of garlic - chopped fine
  • 2/3rds of a can of peeled plum tomatoes
  • 1 capsicum
  • 1 400g pack frozen raw "Fruits de Mer" - this includes prawns, mussels, scallops, squid, etc
  • Paella rice - I used a 300 ml cup and filled it to the brim with rice. This serves 4-5
  • 2 cubes of Maggi chicken cubes
  • 4-5 crab sticks
  • Fresh coriander for garnishing
  • 1 tablespoon oil - I used olive oil
  • Salt to taste

Method

  • Add 1 tablespoon Oil to the saucepan. 
  • Add chopped onion and garlic and fry till transparent. Add the chopped capsicum and cook for about 30 seconds.
  • Add 2/3rds of the tin of peeled plum tomatoes and cook till some of the tanginess of the tomatoes is gone.
  • Add washed Paella rice to the saucepan and mix well.
  • Add 3 cups of water to the saucepan. The volume of water should  be 3 times the volume of rice. Top up the water in case you have a danger of it getting dry.
  • Add the 2 cubes of Chicken stock to the cooking rice.
  • When the rice is halfway done, throw in the sea food(fruits de mer) and let it cook until rice is done. This shouldn't be longer then 7-8 mins.
  • When the rice is done, switch off the heat. The result should be rice in a very watery broth.
  • Add the crab sticks and mix.
  • Sprinkle fresh coriander on top.

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