Preparing a good rice or paella is above all a matter of practice and, at the level of ingredients, I consider that the fundamental thing is have a good liquid to cook them. Whether they are rice with vegetables, meat or fish and seafood, it is very important to have a good homemade broth on hand to give them the best flavor, and with recipes like this one you have it very, very easy.
This recipe for rice with shrimp is simple and the rice is very tasty. The key is that you do not need to have prepared a broth in advance but with the heads and shells of the prawns and some vegetables you will have it ready in just a few minutes and it will give the rice a wonderful prawn flavor.
furthermore prepare a good sauce is essential and in this case I like to use a lady to give it that delicious smoky flavor, although in the ingredients I give you other alternatives in case you don’t have ñoras on hand. Also the use of saffron It is important to give it a good point of flavor and color.
If you like this rice, surely our selection of rice you are going to love it since in it you will find the traditional plenty of rice and the Cauldron of the Mar Menor which is typically served with fish (hake or sea bream for example) that has been cooked in the same type of broth as the rice.
Continuing with the rice dishes with seafood, you will surely like the seafood paellathe exquisite Rice with lobster or the flashy black rice with squid and homemade alioli sauce. It is also very good Seafood and fish fideuá with walnut alioli and the Fideuá in the style of the Ebro Delta.
Other rices focused on one ingredient are Rice With Octopus (in which its cooking broth is used), the tasty rice with fresh cod or the rice with squid.
Ingredients for the rice with prawns recipe (4 people):
- 320 gr of bomba type rice or similar (80 gr per person). We have chosen a rice from our land, the Arroz de Calasparra, because it is a very high quality Murcian rice and it goes perfect with this type of rice.
- Between double and triple the broth of rice, in this case it would be around 1 liter of broth.
- 16 prawns or prawns of the type you prefer.
- For the broth some vegetables: carrot, celery, leek or onion. I have used a carrot and a stick of celery that I had at home.
- 1 ñora (it is a dry red pepper of the “ball” variety, very common in the Levante area). If you don’t have it, you can replace it with a dessert spoonful of chorizo pepper meat or a dessert spoonful of sweet paprika.
- 2 cloves of garlic.
- 1 onion.
- 100 ml of crushed tomato, either bought as is or fresh and crush it at home. I usually buy it sieved because that way it does not have skins or seeds.
- 7-8 threads of saffron.
- Olive oil and salt.
Preparation, how to make shrimp rice:
- First we are going to prepare the broth or fish stock:
- Wash very well prawns either prawns with cold water, peel them and remove the head and throw both the heads and the shells into a pot.
- take a bit of olive oil and put the fire to medium temperature. Sauté the shrimp shells for about 5 minutes, until they brown a bit. I like to use kitchen tongs to split and squeeze the heads and thus make the most of all their juices.
- Wash the vegetables that you are going to use very well, in this case I carrot to which I have cut the end of the tail and a branch of celery. Cut each one into 3 or 4 parts and add them to the pot.
- Pour 1.5 liters of Water along with a bit of Salt and raise the fire to boil.
- When that happens, lower the heat so that it is soft but still bubbling and let it all cook together for 15 minutes with the pot covered.
- When the shrimp broth is ready, strain it and reserve it. Try it in case you have to rectify it from Salt.
- What I usually do is rinse the pot and pour the broth back into it since we will need it hot later to add it to the rice.
- You can prepare the rest of the recipe while the broth is cooking.
- Put to hydrate the lady in a container into which you will pour Water very hot (if it is boiling, better). You can open it a little beforehand to make it easier for it to hydrate inside. It will need about 15 minutes, although if you leave it longer nothing happens.
- When the lady is hydrated, remove the tail and the seeds from the inside, and with a spoon scrape the meat inside and discard the skin.
- Put your paella over medium heat (for those who don’t know, the container is called a paella, not a paella pan) with a little olive oil and cook the prawns a minute on each side, just enough to brown them a little. Reserve in a separate plate.
- Peel and finely chop the tooth Garlic. Also peel the onion and chop it
- take a little more of oilthat almost covers the bottom, and over medium-low heat, add the Garlic and the onion a little bit of Salt and cook them until the onion begins to brown, it will take a little less than 10 minutes.
- Add the meat from lady finely chopped and cook 2 more minutes. If you don’t have ñora, at this time also add the chorizo pepper meat or the paprika.
- The shrimp broth Go heating it so that it is practically boiling at the time of use.
- Incorporates the tomatoes and cook 3 minutes, mixing it with all the sofrito.
- Put the strands of saffron in a small microwaveable container and put it in the microwave and give it about 10 or 15 seconds at maximum power. The strands should be crisp.
- Pound the strands a bit saffron with a mallet or crushing them with a spoon and pour a little broth. You will see that it turns yellow, that is all the dye we need.
- Incorporates the rice and stir it with all the ingredients for 2 minutes.
- pour the shrimp broth already hot on it (the necessary amount, in this case I would add 1 liter), along with the dissolved saffron. Stir everything a little so that the rice is well distributed throughout the paella pan.
- Increase the heat so that it is at medium-high temperature and cook the rice for 8 minutes. Remember that it should not be removed at any time.
- After that time, reduce the heat so that it is soft and barely bubbling for 10-12 more minutes (Calasparra rice usually needs about 20 minutes in total, but there are other varieties that require less time). When there are only a few minutes left, taste it: if there is practically no liquid left and it is still quite hard, add a little more hot water. If you notice that it is practically done, do not add more liquid and let the cooking time finish.
- Leaving a rice at the exact point is complicated but not impossible. here goes the trick Things to keep in mind: if after about 16-18 minutes you taste the rice and see that it is practically ready but there is still a lot of broth left, raise the temperature of the heat so that the liquid evaporates quickly. If, on the other hand, there is no liquid left and the rice is still a little raw, you have no choice but to add water (or more broth if you have it), and always add it hot or almost boiling.
- When it’s almost ready, place the prawns above.
- When it is to your liking you can let it rest for 5 minutes before taking it to the table or give it a dot charred, that is, slightly roasted on the bottom. To do so, when you have it ready, turn up the heat so that the temperature is medium-high and let it cook for 2-3 minutes.
Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Serve and taste:
This rice and any similar it should be served right after resting To arrive hot to the table and on point. If you have plenty you can keep it 2-3 days in the fridge and then reheat it a bit in a pan or in the microwave. You can also freeze it although the texture of the rice may change a bit.
You can serve the dishes in the kitchen or take the paella to the center of the table on a trivet and thus serve the portions. There are those who accompany him with some bread slicesand in Murcia we are very used to adding a squeeze of lemon to almost everything and rice was not going to be less, it is a point that I love. This rice with prawns is authentic… scandalous!
Variants of the rice with shrimp recipe:
To enrich it a little more you can add sepia, mussels either clams for example, and also vegetables such as green beans, red bell pepper, cauliflower, etc.
Tips:
get the perfect rice It depends on your experience, on following the recipe step by step and above all on knowing your pan or paella and the power of your fire. The first times you prepare a paella or rice, you should taste the rice and observe it because if it has run out of liquid very soon or if it is a few minutes away and you try it and it is hard, you should add more hot water.
The rice is ready when Try it in the paella pan and it is a bit harder than how you like to eat it since with the final minutes of rest it will finish cooking.
if you want a point charred that is, slightly toasty on the bottom, the last 2 minutes turn up the medium-high heat (I set it to 7), and that’s it.