Paella is a classic Spanish dish, so if we were going to truly immerse, we needed to make it! The whole family got involved, and though we had to learn a few new cooking techniques, our taste buds were grateful for the effort.

  • First, we bought fresh seafood at the local market. Then we had to decapitate and de-intestinate (my made up word for take out the intestines) the shrimp. Eeew!!
  • I made some homemade bone broth from leftover roasted chicken.
  • Natalie was my chopper- she loved helping to chop all of the veggies!
  • Noah chopped the broad-beans.
  • Paul showed the children how to rip off the “beards” of the mussles, then to tap them to make sure they were still alive. If they didn’t close their shell, they were discarded.
  • It was a little harder to convince them to give up their beards than it looked!
  • Squid: we realized that we had no idea how to cut them up!
  • So, Paul watched youtube and figured it out… Calamari!
  • After simmering the broth, saffron threads, paprika, veggies and rice, we started adding the seafood to the top.
  • Mussels went in last to steam open.
  • Surrounded with lemon wedges to garnish, we were pretty proud of our Paella!
  • We even acheived the slightly burned rice at the bottom, which is said to be the best part. We may have been a little over-zealous on the burnt bottom rice, though.
  • Homemade Paella in Spain.