Project HealthKick: Seafood Paella

Surprise, surprise, I'm still on my healthkick. Well, it has been 2 days...

The CSIRO Wellbeing Diet book recommends two serves of fish per week. My dining partner dislikes cooked fish, so going down that avenue was always going to be difficult. Fortunately, the book has a quick recipe for seafood paella that is ideal for hiding the fish (sneaky!)

I had to make some changes to the recipe because it's quite difficulty to shop for seafood after work, what with most shops being closed. Also, the local supermarket didn't have any short-grain paella rice, so I substituted pre-cooked risotto rice instead.

The final result was brilliant - easy to make, didn't take too long, and the fussy, non-cooked-fish-eater lapped it up. My only other recommendation is to increase the seasoning with a sprinkle of salt, though healthwise, that is another ingredient that I should be cutting down on *sigh*.

Seafood Paella
Serves 2

Ingredients

· 1 tsp saffron
· 1 tsp paprika
· 1/4 cup boiling water
· 2 tblsp olive oil
· 2 cloves garlic, crushed
· 1 onion, finely chopped
· 3 tomatoes, roughly chopped (I used 250g diced canned tomatoes)
· 200g short grain rice (I used risotto rice base)
· 500ml chicken stock
· 400g white fish fillets, prawns, calamari (I used fresh marinara mix from the fishmonger)
· 200g mussels (optional)
· 50g green beans, chopped

Freshly ground black pepper
Lime wedges to serve

Method

1.Mix saffron and paprika with boiling water. Stir to dissolve then set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and cook for 5 mins, or until soft. Add tomato and cook for 3 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring to combine, for a further 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, bring stock to the boil in a saucepan. Add the stock and the saffron liquid to the rice mixture, stirring well to combine. Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
4. Place fish, prawns, mussels and calamari on top of rice. Cover frying pan with foil and cook for a further 10 minutes.
5. Add beans, re-cover pan, and cook for a 5 minutes.
Season with pepper and serve with lime wedges

Ingredients include green beans, saffron and seafood.
My saffron was admitedly a bit old and therefore not very flavoursome. Good colour, though.

No, there is no Tabitha cat in the paella.
She was just curious about the cooking process... and the seafood... mmm...

Combine the rice with the tomatoes, and simmer

Add the seafood to the pan and cover with foil while it cooks;
add green beans 5 minutes before the end of cooking time

Seafood paella - a successful result from Project HealthKick!