Chicken and Vegetable Paella

Just utter the word paella and people's eyes lighten up immediately. Paella is a rice dish that originated in the 19th century in Spain's Valencian region as a peasant's dish featuring butter beans and chickens, rabbit, snails or duck. Today, paella has become identified with Spain, and has developed into various forms, using ingredients such as seafood, meat and mixed.

You don't have to wait to go to Spain to try it out. After watching several people make paella and looking at several recipes, I created this simple version with chicken and vegetables. You can experiment with any ingredients you like. The basic process is to heat the oil in the pan, add the meat or seafood and brown (if you are mixing the two, add the meat first and then the seafood), then comes the onions and vegetables, then the chopped tomatoes, then the rice, then the stock. Let it cook for a while and then remove from the heat once the rice is nearly done and let it sit for 5 minutes to absorb any remaining stock. The crispy, toasted bottom is typical and even considered a delicacy. If you don't have a paella pan, you can try using a wok-type pan as well on a stovetop.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons Olinda Ridge extra virgin olive oil
3 chicken breasts, diced and seasoned with salt
1 onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium zucchini, sliced into semi-circles
1 italian green pepper, diced
3-4 small tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 red pepper, cut into strips
8 asparagus spears
1 lemon, juiced
1 lemon, quartered for each plate
8 cups chicken stock, heated
3 cups short-grain white rice (such as an arborio or risotto-type)
saffron
Salt



Preparation
Heat the olive oil in a paella pan. Add the chicken pieces and sauté until they are brown. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add the onion, garlic, zucchini and Italian green pepper. After five minutes, add the chopped tomatoes and crushed saffron, mixing well.

Then add the rice, mix well with the other ingredients and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken back to the pan.

Now add the heated stock (you might not need to use it all at once), bring it back to the boil in the paella pan and immediately add the juice of the lemon. Check for salt.

Flatten the mixture and alternate the red pepper strips and asparagus spears on top. Push them down slightly into the rice mixture.

Cook on high heat for ten minutes, and then on low heat for another seven or eight. If you did not use all the stock, keep checking during the cooking and add more as needed.

When the rice is soft, remove from the heat and leave to sit for five minutes so that the rice absorbs all the stock before serving straight from the pan.

Tip: If using a large paella pan and you are not cooking in an outdoor grill, you can set it on two burners on your stovetop. Be sure to rotate the pan several times to ensure even cooking.

Serves 4