I didn’t really start getting into paella until this summer when I visited Spain. I was still eating both chicken and fish then, and although I’ve never been a fan of seafood, I ate it pretty much every day. I had a random craving for paella a few weeks ago so came up with this dish. Instead of using standard paella rice, I used brown rice and I swapped seafood for quorn chunks and mushrooms. It was a delight!
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
- 200g frozen peas
- 200g frozen green beans
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 red chilli, diced
- 1 green/red pepper, sliced
- 1 pinch saffron
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1/4 tsp tumeric
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 cup brown rice
- 1 veg stock cube
- 2 cups water (approx 420 ml)
- 1 can chopped tomatoes
- 100g button mushrooms, halved
- 150g mock chicken pieces (e.g. quorn)
- Lemon wedges to serve
Method:
- Place green beans and peas in a bowl and cover with boiling water then set aside
- In a frying pan (that has a lid) heat 1/5 tbsp of the olive oil and fry the garlic and onion for 3-4 minutes, then add the chilli and pepper
- Fry for about 5 more minutes, then add the saffron, 1 tsp paprika, tumeric and cayenne pepper along with the rice
- Continue to fry for a 1-2 minutes, and in the meantime make up the stock cube with 2 cups of water. Once 2 minutes is up, add the chopped tomatoes and 3/4 of the stock mix. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 30 minutes
- Once the rice has cooked, drain the peas and green beans and add to the rice pan along with the remaning stock. Cover again for 10 more minutes.
- In the meantime, combine quorn and mushrooms together in a bowl and coat with 0.5 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp paprika
- In a seperate frying pan, fry on medium for approx 10 minutes, stirring regularly
- Add quorn mixture to the rice and serve with fresh lemon wedges
