Chicken and chorizo paella recipe
Inspired by oven-cook risottos, this oven-cooked paella requires no stirring, just beautifully cooked saffron rice, rich with chorizo, chicken and garlic. The ingredients aren't strictly traditional but it tastes just as delicious as the classic Spanish dish this recipe is inspired by.
Ingredients
- 1 red onion, roughly chopped
- 2 red peppers, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, grated
- 6 free-range skinless, boneless chicken thighs
- 150 g firm chorizo, thickly sliced into 1cm/0.5inch coins
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 generous pinches of good saffron (like Belazu)
- 250 g paella rice
- 600 ml hot chicken stock
- 1 lemon, juice only
- 1 pinch sea salt flakes
- 1 handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 lemon, cut into wedges
Details
- Cuisine: Spanish
- Recipe Type: Rice
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 10 mins
- Cooking Time: 85 mins
- Serves: 4
Step-by-step
- Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/390°F/gas mark 6.
- Tip the onion, peppers, garlic, chicken thighs, chorizo and olive oil into a roasting tin or a flat lidded casserole dish large enough to hold everything in roughly one layer (it’s fine if there’s a bit of overlap). Transfer to the oven and roast for 25 minutes.
- Meanwhile, pop the saffron strands into a mug with a couple of tablespoons of boiling water and set aside.
- Once the chicken and peppers have had 25 minutes, remove the tin from the oven and stir through the paella rice, hot chicken stock and steeped saffron along with the saffron water. Cover tightly with foil or the lid (this is important so the rice cooks), then return the dish to the oven at 160°C fan/180°C/356°F/gas mark 4 for a further hour, until the rice is cooked through.
- Once the paella is cooked, add a dash more hot chicken stock or boiling water to adjust the texture as you wish, squeeze over the lemon juice, taste and adjust the salt as needed.
- Serve hot, scattered with parsley and with lemon wedges.
This recipe is from The Roasting Tin Around the World – Global One Dish Dinners by Rukmini Iyer. Published by Square Peg, 14th May, £16.99 HBK. Photography by David Loftus.
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