ilonggoLIVINGinCanada

December 14, 2009

We are all in the festive mode right now as Christmas is fast approaching and cooking special dishes for the Christmas table are high on the list.  Careful planning of which special foods to prepare is still the best way of preparing for the special occasion. My readers, Marilyn & Jenny are quite eager to try my arroz a la Valenciana. It has been customary for people to prepare their Valenciana or paella the conventional way as the process itself is considerably tedious. Let alone altering the recipe for the sake of making the dish more palatable and delightful to the eyes.  My philosophy in cooking is to try some innovative ways preparing the dish without compromising nor totally altering the flavor. My chef embrace this philosophy with much reservations as at times the dish will turn out a disaster but, in many ways a success! Without really trying hard, valenciana can be prepared with considerable ease. So here we go.

Arroz a la Valenciana can be prepared in so many ways. The proportion of rice is: 3:1 (regular rice against glutinous or malagkit). This ratio will make processing the dish with ease as the mixture won't be that sticky. Furthermore, quantity of ingredients called for in the recipe is approximate and one can play around with it.

Ingredients:

6 cups regular rice
2 cups glutinous rice or malagkit (long grain)
2 pcs. chicken breast
1 pc. medium pork chop meat
8-10 pcs. of large shrimps
2 pcs. Chinese sausages or chorizo de Bilbao or Spanish sausages cut up juliene
1 pc. red bell pepper, cut up in small strips
1 pc. green onion, chopped coarsely, separating white stalk from green leaves
1pc. large cooking onion, 5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 package ananato (achuwete powder), 1 tbsp. turmeric powder (kalawag)
1 package raisins or few pieces of mission figs
4 pieces hard boiled eggs, sliced in quarters
1/2 cup green peas, 1 can coconut milk (gata)
a pinch of saffron, salt & pepper to taste

Procedure:
Boil all the meats except chorizo in a half-filled saucepan for 20 minutes. The meat does have to be fully cooked as it will be cooked in the second stage. Remove all half-cooked meats and let it cool down. Peal shrimps and save the head for grounding to extract the juice. Cut up meat in small strips and set aside. Rinse rice once and drain. Add the soup from boiled meats to the rice together with the turmeric powder, atchuwete and a bit of salt. Cook rice as usual and make sure stir it halfway so that the buttom will not burn.
Sautee garlic, onion, white portion of green onion and saffron. Then add chorizo, simmer then add the rest of the cooked meats and shrimps. Sautee it further and then add the juice extracted from the grounded shrimp’s head. Add coconut milk, a bit of salt and pepper, simmer for 10 minutes.
The final stage: add cooked rice and mixed it well with the ingredients. This is the hardest part as one should make sure that rice is turned in folds so as not to burn the dish. The process will take between 10 to 15 minutes of mixing and turning. Finally, add raisins, red pepper, green portion of green onions. Mix and turn rice mixture for another 5 minutes adjusting salt.
Place the cooked valenciana on a big platter, garnish with eggs and arrange some ingredients for presentation.

Enjoy your Arroz a la Valenciana, Jenny & Marilyn!