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Recipes / Holidays · Seafood · Chicken · Party

Paella Mista

Chicken, chorizo, prawns, clams and mussels on saffron rice — a holiday paella for eight, cooked in one big pan.

Prep
30 min
Cook
About 1 hr, plus a 15-minute rest
Serves
8 servings
Jump to the recipe
Paella on the table in a big cast-iron pan, topped with prawns, mussels, clams, chorizo, artichokes, lemon wedges and parsley

What we changed

Changes from the Steve Winston original. Where it came from

  • Scaled for eight. The book gives amounts per person, like a multiplication table; this is our card for a crowd of eight.
  • Twice the wine. 1 cup of white wine for the saffron instead of ½ cup.
  • Hot paprika. ½ tsp alongside the pimentón for a little more heat.
  • Mushrooms. 8 oz, because we put mushrooms in everything.
  • Cajun pickled green beans. For the green-bean part of the vegetables — they add a little tang and spice.
  • Grilled asparagus, sometimes. Charred on the BBQ and laid over the top at the end. Optional and delightful.
  • A big cast-iron pan. A 17-inch Lodge instead of a paella pan, finished on the stove under an aluminum paella-pan cover.

Our holiday paella starts from The Spanish Table — the Spanish market’s recipe handout, which we’ve been cooking from and scribbling on since at least 2012, and the classic paella in Steve Winston’s The Spanish Table Cookbook. It’s written per person, like a multiplication table, so you scale it to your crowd. Our card, from Christmas Eve 2021, is the version for eight.

We cook it in a 17-inch cast-iron pan rather than a proper paella pan, and we add mushrooms because we add mushrooms to everything. The rest stays close to the book: build the flavors in order, add the rice, then stop stirring and let it be.

The paella simmering in a large cast-iron pan, rice, chicken and chorizo in a tomato-saffron broth
1. Rice, chicken and chorizo simmering in the saffron broth.
Mussels, clams, mushrooms, green beans and roasted red peppers spread over the simmering paella
2. Shellfish pushed in, peppers, beans and mushrooms on top — no more stirring.
The paella nearly done in the cast-iron pan, prawns and mussels cooked through and the broth almost absorbed
3. Almost there — the last of the broth cooking into the rice before the rest.

Make it

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients

Saffron wine

In the pan

Rice

Seafood

To finish

  1. Warm the saffron in a small pan until it smells fragrant. Add the wine, bring it almost to a boil, then take it off the heat.
  2. Coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil and heat over medium. Brown the chicken, turning, until golden and cooked through.
  3. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and translucent. Add the chorizo and mushrooms and cook until the chorizo starts giving up its fat.
  4. Stir in the rice with the pimentón and hot paprika for about a minute, until every grain is coated. Grate the tomato straight into the pan.
  5. Pour in the saffron wine and the hot stock (keep the stock warm on the side from the start). Bring to a boil, scraping the bottom of the pan, then scatter in the peppers, green beans and artichoke hearts.
  6. Turn it down to a slow boil. After about 5 minutes, push the clams and mussels into the rice hinge-side down and tuck in the prawns. Stop stirring from here.
  7. Cook about 15 minutes more, until the rice is done. Cover the pan, let it rest 15 minutes, then lay any grilled asparagus over the top and finish with parsley and lemon wedges.

Good to know

  • Don't stir in the second half of cooking — that's how you get socarrat, the crisp, caramelized rice on the bottom. On a big pan over a home burner, move the pan around so the whole bottom gets heat.
  • We finish ours on the stove under an aluminum paella-pan cover; resting it loosely covered with foil works too. The book's other option is to finish it in a 350°F oven for the last 10–15 minutes.
  • Bomba rice drinks more liquid than other paella rice. Have extra stock warm and ready.
  • If you're worried the clams won't open in time, steam them in a separate pan and add them at the end, using their liquid in place of some of the stock.
  • Any clams or mussels that stay shut after cooking go in the trash.
  • The green beans we use: Cajun pickled green beans (affiliate link).