How to Make Spanish Rice
You can not imagine the elaborate and exquisite spanish rice recipe you can make with such natural and inexpensive ingredients. Spanish rice as we know it today was introduced into Europe through Spain by the Arabs in the 7 th c. It is the most important food plant in the world.
There are over 1,400 variations cultivated today but the most popular one is the rice grown in Valencia and used in all spanish rice recipe. The most important rice fields are located precisely in Valencia, in the Albufera. The Albufera is a natural clay bottom marshland, with just the right chemical components for growing spanish rice.
Whatever the season maybe, there is a simple spanish rice recipe to make. The preparation time is minimal, the cooking utensils are few and you have all the vitamins and nutrition you need in one single plate. It is fantastic ! If you want to cook a spanish rice recipe correctly, it would be recommendable to buy a special kind of frying pan called the paella pan even if the spanish rice recipe you are going to cook is not specifically a paella.
You have three categories of spanish rice recipe with two options for each:
Meat and poultry rice recipe such as:
- paella
- rice in the oven (see picture right)
- rice with ribs
- rice with chicken, duck and snails.
All of these spanish rice recipe are made with some added vegetables and can be either dry (having soaked up the broth) or soupy:
- Seafood and shellfish
- spanish rice recipe paella
- rice with squid in its ink sauce
- rice with codfish
- rice with small eels
- Only Vegetables
- rice with chick pea and raisins
- rice with artichokes, green beans and peppers
- rice with kale and white beans ( alubias)
- rice stuffed peppers
Spanish Rice and Beans Recipe
Ingredients for 4 persons
- 2 cups white spanish rice
- 16 oz. white or pink beans
- 1 large white onion
- 1 chopped medium ripe tomato
- 1 teaspoon saffron
- 1 teaspoon sweet red paprika
- salt
- 4 cups hot water or broth
- olive oil ( enough to cover bottom of pan
Put olive oil in the paella and heat. Fry the onion until soft and then make a small space in the middle of the paella pan and fry the tomato. When the onion is light brown, the tomato should be a little compact. Add the sweet red paprika to the tomato and quickly stir and immediately add the hot water or broth. Add the beans evenly and let cook for 5 minutes. Taste for salt.
Add the saffron, stir and add the rice making sure it is completely covered with broth. Let cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes, moving the pan in a circular direction once in a while. When 20 minutes are up, taste a few grains to see if the rice is tender. Take away from the heat and let stand for about 5 minutes. As always, there are many variations for spanish rice and for spanish rice recipe in general.