Asparagus Paella
Asparagus Paella
Paella is a Spanish rice dish with saffron and a crispy under layer. On top of the rice is the perfect place to steam some asparagus for a vegan twist on the traditional recipe.
Equipment
- 1 Large frying pan with lid
- 1 asparagus peeler or sharp potato peeler
Ingredients
- 200 g green beans (flat beans are also nice)
- one big tomato
- one big onion
- 5 white asparagus
- 150 g rice (any kind, i use cheap long grain)
- 340 mL water
- one cube bouillon (or home made vegetable broth)
- half a lemon
- 6 threads of saffron
Instructions
- Grab the broadest frying pan that you can put a lid on (don’t put the lid on yet when baking). cut the onions in fine pieces and the green bean in thirds, fry them in oil on high heat until they turn a bit brown. In the meantime soak the saffron and bullion in some warm water. or soak the saffron in homemade bullion. Then peel the asparagus, if you have never done this before, it is quite difficult, a sharp potato peeler or asparagus peeler is advised, make sure to properly peel them to avoid stringiness. Don’t peel the tips! Also try not to break them while peeling.
- when the asparagus are peeled cut them in two over the length of the asparagus by carefully starting with the tip, and limit the length or each piece to the radius of your pan, if you have particularly thick asparagus, cut them in fours over the length. Then cut a tomato into full slices perpendicular to the stem. don’t use the tiny ends, just eat them right there or put them in a salad. When the onion and green beans are done, turn of the heat of the pan, and expose as large of an area at the middle of the pan as possible by shoving the baked goods to the side. add the rice to the pan and top it of by carefully placing the asparagus and tomato slices in an aesthetically pleasing way, carefully pour in the bullion over one of the tomato slices, then carefully add the rest of the water, don’t worry if your greens on top start floating, just do not disturb them to much to keep the nice pattern. put on the lid, set to a medium heat and let it boil for 20 minutes, no peaking!
- after this, squeeze the juice from half a lemon over the dish and your paella should be done. You can also put sliced of lemon on top of the paella at this point.
Notes
• If you wash your rice, don’t wash it too thoroughly, because the starch in the rice helps make the crunchy bottom layer.
• You can add some other greens to your liking, think about whether you want to fry them or boil/steam them like the onion and the asparagus respectively. bell pepper is great for frying, whereas baby corn is great when steamed, most veggies work well for either, this dish is great to use up your leftover vegetables and experiment with making them in different ways. when asparagus are not in season i like to steam aubergine.
• be flexible, if you think the dish needs a bit more water after 20 minutes, add some, if it has too much be sure to boil off the leftover water without the lid, every rice is different, i also like to smell the dish at the end to check whether the rice is starting to caramelize at the bottom.
• One alternative way to make this dish that i especially like is to buy pickled lemons, and put those on top of the paella in slices. then you don’t have to top it off with lemon.