Cooking-4-Coeliac-Guests: Paella Recipe (serves 4)

One meal I like to make is Paella it is Gluten free and it can be made to suit people with all sorts of allergies. My wife Linda cannot eat onions as well as being Coeliac, so this meal is a real winner. There are many versions of this meal but the one we like the best is outlined here. You can also add onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and substitute saffron for turmeric because saffron is very expensive (although I think Saffron tastes better). You can also include all sorts of fish, mussels, crayfish, cockles, pork, sherry anything you want. In fact that is how Paella was first created in Spain, it was a meal that used up all the leftovers. Now days however it has become more expensive because of the cost of the ingredients.

Ingredients
1/2 Pint of Chicken stock
1 Glass of Dry white wine
10 Small Squid cut into rings
160g Cooked Prawns
3 Pinches of Saffron
Salt
Ground Pepper
3 Chicken Breasts Cut into Cubes
160g Risotto Rice
3 Cloves of Crushed Garlic
1 Large Pepper Red or Orange diced in cubes
300g to 400g piece of Cod
110g Peas

Method: preparation 15 mins cooking time 45 mins
Heat the olive oil in a very large frying pan add the chicken cook for a few minutes then add the pepper, garlic and lightly season with salt and pepper. Continue cooking for 5 minutes then add the rice, stock and some of the wine. Reduce the heat to simmer and occasionally stir. Continue to cook until the rice is nearly cooked 15 - 20 minutes. Make a well in the middle cut the fish into several chunks and add with the squid. Once the fish is cooked stir the mixture so that the fish breaks up into pieces. Finally add the prawns and peas again stir in and add the remaining wine to prevent the paella becoming too dry. Traditionally you leave it to simmer without stirring but I find this makes the rice to stick to the pan. Hence stir every now and then. Taste and season to suit your requirements.

To decorate the paella and make it look even better, add whole cooked prawns and a few giant green mussels in their shells. I have not shown this in the pictures below, it is optional and improves the presentation. The smell and taste will more than make up for the lack of presentation and it will save you fiddling about pealing prawns which can be a bit messy.