Putting your rice cooker to good use: paella!

[Anemone del Camino]

So, I have been pulling @Robo 's leg ever since he asked nefore his forst Camino if he should bring his rice cooker. Well, this evwning I put my rice cooker to good use and thought I would share.

See, a year ago I bought an Asian cook book published by Lucky Peach. It's Asian but simplifies for markets outside of Asia so we can find the ingredients, and no frying. One of my favourite recipes from that book is chicken backs cooked in rice in a rice cooker. Add all the sauces, spices, rice and chicken in, close and wait for the "click".

So tonight I tried paella:

2 cups of rice, with what ever amount of water is needed for that (cover rice plus 1cm)
500 grams of chicken backs cut in small pieces
500 grams of boneless pork chops, also in small pieces
300 grams shrimp
3 sachets of azafran sazon by Goya
Sweet and hot pimenton
1cup green peas
2 green, yellow or red peppers
A handlful of parsely
4 garlic cloves

I sauted (sautayed?) the meat to get the bit of fat to melt a bit and give them meat flavour. I added a bit of salt and pepper as well as the pimenton. How much: no idea, as i cook "al ojo de buen cubero" but perhaps 1/4 tea spoon of spicy to 3/4 dulce.

Then I put the rice, water, sazon and galic cloves in the rice cooker, added the "sautayed" pork and chicken on top and pressed "cook".

About half way through I added the shrimp and frozen green peas.

When cooker said we were done, I added the green pepers and parsley and forced an extra 5 minutes of cooking

Paella with only 2 things to wash, a pan and the rice cooker!

For my taste I will add more pimenton and a bit more salt (wanted to be careful not knowing how much salt the sazon would give).

Talk about a great dish to serve in albergues, as long as the pilgrims are not allowed to mess with the rice cooker because they would break them in a minute.

Options: chorrizo refrito (yeah, ueah, Jamie Oliver and I will hear about it), muscles (cheat by separating the shell and only throw the muscle itself in the cooker). You could also fry up some garlic in oil and then pour this on top of the rice when you are ready to serve. Added flavour, for those who don't mind garlic breath.

This will feed 12, or 8 hungry pilgrims.

Buen provecho!

 

[onwayhome]

So, I have been pulling @Robo 's leg ever since he asked nefore his forst Camino if he should bring his rice cooker. Well, this evwning I put my rice cooker to good use and thought I would share.

See, a year ago I bought an Asian cook book published by Lucky Peach. It's Asian but simplifies for markets outside of Asia so we can find the ingredients, and no frying. One of my favourite recipes from that book is chicken backs cooked in rice in a rice cooker. Add all the sauces, spices, rice and chicken in, close and wait for the "click".

So tonight I tried paella:

2 cups of rice, with what ever amount of water is needed for that (cover rice plus 1cm)
500 grams of chicken backs cut in small pieces
500 grams of boneless pork chops, also in small pieces
300 grams shrimp
3 sachets of azafran sazon by Goya
Sweet and hot pimenton
1cup green peas
2 green, yellow or red peppers
A handlful of parsely
4 garlic cloves

I sauted (sautayed?) the meat to get the bit of fat to melt a bit and give them meat flavour. I added a bit of salt and pepper as well as the pimenton. How much: no idea, as i cook "al ojo de buen cubero" but perhaps 1/4 tea spoon of spicy to 3/4 dulce.

Then I put the rice, water, sazon and galic cloves in the rice cooker, added the "sautayed" pork and chicken on top and pressed "cook".

About half way through I added the shrimp and frozen green peas.

When cooker said we were done, I added the green pepers and parsley and forced an extra 5 minutes of cooking

Paella with only 2 things to wash, a pan and the rice cooker!

For my taste I will add more pimenton and a bit more salt (wanted to be careful not knowing how much salt the sazon would give).

Talk about a great dish to serve in albergues, as long as the pilgrims are not allowed to mess with the rice cooker because they would break them in a minute.

Options: chorrizo refrito (yeah, ueah, Jamie Oliver and I will hear about it), muscles (cheat by separating the shell and only throw the muscle itself in the cooker). You could also fry up some garlic in oil and then pour this on top of the rice when you are ready to serve. Added flavour, for those who don't mind garlic breath.

This will feed 12, or 8 hungry pilgrims.

Buen provecho!

Yum! Looks V tasty.
I never understood the Jamie Oliver chorizo 'furore', it seems to me that the paella's I've enjoyed in Spain have had local variations- it's an esteemed national dish, maybe only Spanish chefs can add 'extras'!

 

[Coleen Clark]

I gave an employee of mine a small rice cooker, a small drip coffee pot, and a basket of quick foods for her dorm when she quit to attend college. You can make anything with these two items! Cocoa, tea, coffee, instant oatmeal, ramen noodle, instant soups etc from the coffee pot.
And lots of ideas for the rice cooker, other than rice dishes, like steaming veggies etc.
She loved it!

 

[Mikel Olivares]

¡Madre mía! OMG!

 

[Mikel Olivares]

Paella en el albergue de Mansilla de las Mulas.

 

[Pingüigrino]

Please, please, please, don´t call that "paella". Call it "Cooked rice with things inside" Paella is made with chicken and RABBIT, and in a specific pan. No peas, no yellow pepper, no... If you add other ingredients like prawns, mussel etc, them the paella need a "last name" Say Paella Mixta, Paella de marisco, Paella de verduras, etc. .
That said, there are lots of recipes being the main ingredient rice, and most of them tasty. (Rice with pork chops, rice with vegetables, rice with mushrooms, rice with chorizo...) Yes, maybe you can cook a palatable rice with chorizo. But definitely , DON`T call it paella. .

Just kidding , but please dont call it paella. The day you try a true paella, you will know why us spaniards are so extremist about this.

Buen Camino. And good paella.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

This was the first time I tried the rice cooker vs spending an hour cooking it properly in the correct dish, add browing each meat properly and using a sea food broth, but you know what, it works very well for a 10 minute prep and 20 minute cooking meal with only two dishes to wash. It doesn't have the deapth of flavour, but it certainly is as good as what most cheapy restaurants along the Caminos serve us, never mind the frozen prepackaged ones from the Dia.

 

[notion900]

A few years ago there was an advert for something like insurance on the TV in Spain. It showed 2 gay guys cooking paella in their kitchen. It attracted a lot of complaints, not because of homophobia, but because they were putting ONION in the paella.

 

[domigee]

Please, please, please, don´t call that "paella".

A thousand 'likes' @Pingüigrino

 

[JulieandPeter]

You know what they say, "one's paella is their paella" regardless of how it is cooked.
Thanks for taking the time typing up and sharing the recipe. Wish I had a rice cooker instead of the paella pan collecting dust on the top shelf.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

You know what they say, "one's paella is their paella" regardless of how it is cooked.
Thanks for taking the time typing up and sharing the recipe. Wish I had a rice cooker instead of the paella pan collecting dust on the top shelf.

Dust it off then! Prep the ingredients and then finish the dish in the middle of a hot oven - heat all around rather than from a stove top.

I once had the temerity to cook paella in the Quatro Cantones in Belorado. A Spanish lady sampled it and said it was good but needed more garlic. A German lady said it was a "mish-mash". The senora bridled: "That, madam is my country's national dish!"

 

[JulieandPeter]

Dust it off then! Prep the ingredients and then finish the dish in the middle of a hot oven - heat all around rather than from a stove top.

I once had the temerity to cook paella in the Quatro Cantones in Belorado. A Spanish lady sampled it and said it was good but needed more garlic. A German lady said it was a "mish-mash". The senora bridled: "That, madam is my country's national dish!"

I think I will go to Spain instead - in four days!

 

[Anemone del Camino]

You know what they say, "one's paella is their paella" regardless of how it is cooked.
Thanks for taking the time typing up and sharing the recipe. Wish I had a rice cooker instead of the paella pan collecting dust on the top shelf.

I use my pella pan for bread pudding, with a whiskey sauce. Much better use of it.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

I think I will go to Spain instead - in four days!

I see, taking the easy way out of the challenge then?
Have a great trip and may your feet fall softly upon the Way.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

I use my pella pan for bread pudding, with a whiskey sauce. Much better use of it.

A few years ago I stood with one of my brothers outside of a local baker's that had a sign in the shop window that said:

"BREAD PUDDING - JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER USED TO MAKE!"

Charlie looked at me and said "Oh god, I hope not!" . . . .

For those of you not familiar with English Bread Pudding it is a concoction of stale bread steeped in milk, dried fruits, spices, sugar and fat squidged together then pressed into a flat pan and baked in an oven at a sufficiently high enough temperature to cause the top to crust over like the nastiest of skinned knees, spotting it with flaked remnants of incinerated sultanas whilst leaving the base with a moist stodgy consistancy akin to drying wallpaper paste.

Armed with bread pudding made from our mother's recipe Britons set out across the world to build an empire, construct air raid shelters to protect themselves from Hitler's bombs and used it as armour for their tanks on D-Day.

It is, however, a myth that the Titanic actually struck a discarded piece of bread pudding floating in the Atlantic as my mother's pudding would have never have floated for long enough but would have sunk, like the heaviest of anchors, to the ocean's bed.

Apart from that she was a pretty good mum!

 

[notion900]

DON`T call it paella. .

LOL First time I saw 4 angry plus 1 sad on the forum.

 

[JulieandPeter]

I use my pella pan for bread pudding, with a whiskey sauce. Much better use of it.

I might climb up there for bread pudding . . .

 

[Mikel Olivares]

The best Paella Valenciana, in the Albufera of Valencia In the company of my daughter and more relatives.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

I might climb up there for bread pudding . . . View attachment 34096

Here is the recipe, or at least a similar one since mine (it's got to be somewhere) is feom a local Louisiana restaurant that adapted ot from Paul Prud'homme.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/bread-pudding-with-bourbon-sauce-50182053

 

[JulieandPeter]

Here is the recipe, or at least a similar one since mine (it's got to be somewhere) is feom a local Louisiana restaurant that adapted ot from Paul Prud'homme.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/bread-pudding-with-bourbon-sauce-50182053

Thank you! Now I need to go out and purchase a rice cooker and bourbon.

 

[notion900]

Here's another real deal at Don Blas's parish albergue in Fuenterroble. This one is De Marisco. It was a metre in diameter and served with big shots of gin and whisky and a mountain of joke and story telling.