Recipes

Yotam Ottolenghi’s baked ‘paella’ with prawns, chorizo and salsa verde

Yotam Ottolenghi’s baked paella. Photograph: Andrew Scrivani/New York Times

Yotam Ottolenghi
Fri May 17 2019 - 05:59
Serves: 0
Course: Main Course
Cooking Time: 1 hr 30 mins
Ingredients
  • 135ml olive oil
  • 30g chopped fresh parsley
  • 2 mild red or green chillies, such as Anaheim chiles, halved lengthways, seeded and thinly sliced
  • 7 garlic cloves, 2 roughly chopped and 5 thinly sliced lengthways
  • Sea salt and black pepper
  • 600g whole, shell-on tiger or jumbo prawns
  • 340g boneless, skinless halibut fillet, cut into 6 equal pieces
  • 2 lemons, 1 squeezed to get 1½tbsp juice and 1 cut into 6 wedges
  • 225g fresh chorizo, casing discarded and chorizo roughly crumbled
  • 2 large vine tomatoes (400g), roughly grated and skins discarded
  • 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped (about 150g)
  • 1tbsp tomato puree
  • 400g bomba or other paella rice
  • 285g jarred or canned artichoke hearts marinated in oil, drained and halved
  • 1 red pepper, stemmed, seeded, then cut into 1cm strips
  • 1¼tsp smoked sweet paprika
  • 1tsp saffron threads
  • 780ml fish stock, warmed
  • 480ml hot water

Step 1 Heat the oven to 230 Celsius.

Step 2 Add 90ml of the oil, the parsley, half the chilli, the roughly chopped garlic, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and a grind of pepper to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely chopped, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Scrape half the salsa verde into a medium bowl and reserve the remaining salsa verde.

Step 3 Keeping the heads and tails intact, remove and discard the prawn shells and transfer the head-on prawns into the medium bowl with the salsa verde. Add the halibut, lemon juice, three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper to the bowl with the prawns and gently toss to combine. Transfer to the refrigerator to chill while you continue with the rest.

Step 4 Add the chorizo, tomatoes, onion, tomato puree and the remaining sliced garlic, chilli and three tablespoons of oil to a large, deep metal roasting tin (about 40cm by 30cm) and toss to coat. Transfer to the oven and cook until the sauce is thickened and browned at the edges, stirring once halfway through – about 20 minutes.

Step 5 Stir the rice, artichokes, red pepper, paprika, saffron, 1½ teaspoons of salt and a good grind of pepper into the pan. Pour in the stock and hot water and stir well to combine. Cover with foil and return to the oven until the rice is cooked through and most of the liquid has been absorbed – about 25 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 260 Celsius.

Step 6 Remove the pan from the oven, remove the foil, and top with the marinated prawns and halibut, gently pushing them into the rice without mixing it around too much. Return to the oven, uncovered, until the shrimp and halibut have cooked through – about 5 minutes.

Step 7 Spoon the reserved salsa verde over the paella. Serve warm, with the lemon wedges alongside. – New York Times

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