What am I doing? As a full fat carnivore, this is the second vegetarian recipe I’ve been attracted to in as many weeks.
What I am not attracted to is the title – it’s dreadful. Look this up and you’d get hits about bomba and Calasparra rice or basic rice recipes not swamped with vegetables. I must try to come up with something more appropriate.
This is not a paella, rather it is what I think the Spanish would refer to as an Arroz dish. It’s cooked in the oven.
Planning
| serves: | 4 |
| preparation time: | 15 mins |
| cooking time: | 1 hr |
Ingredients
- juice of ½ lemon
- 1 fennel bulb
- olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 large red pepper
- 2 large vine tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tsp smoked paprika (pimenton)
- 1 tsp hot smoked paprika
- 400g tin butter beans, drained
- 1 small sweet potato, peeled & chunked
- 800ml vegetable stock
- 3 sprigs rosemary
- 200g paella rice
- 2 chicons red chicory, halved & trimmed
- 100g tenderstem broccoli, trimmed
- Salt & pepper
Method
Heat your oven to 180°C (fan)/gas 5.
Squeeze the juice of ½ lemon into a glass bowl. Trim the fennel bulb removing any discoloured outer leaves, then halve it. Now halve the halves so you have four quarter wedges. Cut out most of the hard core but leave enough to keep the quarters intact. Drop them into the lemon juice as you go to stop the flesh going brown. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a shallow casserole and brown the fennel wedges – you aren’t cooking them, just browning – then return to the bowl (with the lemon juice tipped out). (Reserve any remaining lemon juice for sprinkling over the dish once cooked.)
Heat another tablespoon of oil and fry the onion and peppers for about 10 minutes until the onion is lightly tinged golden. Add the tomatoes and cook until soft. Add the garlic and smoked paprikas and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the beans, sweet potato, stock and rosemary. Bring all to the boil, reduce the heat and cook gently for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle the rice around the veggies, working it under the liquid. Add the fennel and chicory, let the stock come to the boil, season well then transfer (uncovered) to the oven.
Cook for 15 minutes before laying the broccoli evenly on top and drizzling with a little olive oil. Check to see that there is enough liquid to keep the rice just covered; add a little water if not. Bake for another 15 minutes when the rice should be cooked. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the dish.
Saffron allioli is supposedly a good accompaniment.
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