Spanish Rice Dish Called Paella

Every country has its own speciality of rice dish. In India, we enjoy Biryani, Indonesians like Nasi Goreg, Chinese like fry rice, Thais like Khao paat, and Spanish like Paella All the rice dishes have common ingredients of vegetables and meat of your choice, but the only difference is the method of its preparation. Even the utensils differ from country to country. It could be a deep pot containing layers of coloured rice, covered tightly, and cooked under steam, or it could be opened wok to simply stir fry the rice with mixed veggies and meat. Spanish use a huge flat pan. Vegetables or meat stock is separately made which is used for boiling rice instead of plain water although some may just use veggie or chicken cubes. My niece made for me veggie paella and it was quite delicious. She put 2 tablespoons of olive oil and fried the ground paste of one large onion and one teaspoon of crushed garlic. Next she added one tin of Soya bean chunks and stir fried till light brown. She then added assorted veggies such as carrots, beans, mushrooms, corn, green peas, red and green capsicum, tomato paste and also tomato puree. When she saw the oil bubbling, she added five hundred grams of par boiled rice, and then added veggie cube, five glasses of water, paella powder, saffron strands, perejil powder and salt. She covered the pan with foil and steamed it till it was tender. For garnishing, she put slices of lime. Non vegetarians use chicken, pork, clamps, octopus and shrimps Spanish can’t eat chillies, not even a pinch of chilli powder; I find their food very bland. Thank Gawd, I carry my own bottle of chilli sauce in my purse whenever I go dinning in a Spanish restaurant.