We have a bulk frozen food chain store, here in the "Northern" suburbs of Cape Town called Vis Fabriek (roughly translated -
Fish Factory). We've dubbed it the freezer shop, as it sells all kinds of frozen goodies at unbeatable prices.
Every now and again, we'll see something we don't ordinarily cook, but really want to experiment with. I made paella a while ago, and have been craving another one, but let's be honest. Paella is very laborious and stupidly expensive.
One evening, the craving struck really hard, and I made a surprisingly delicious seafood "chowder" of sorts, with savoury rice and it had us all licking our plates.
For the Savoury Rice:
I used 2 onions and a bag of frozen mixed veg, sauteed that and then added two cups of rice to the pot and added 1lt of water and brought the pot down to simmer. While I was sauteeing the onions and the veggies, I added ready-prepared garlic butter as well as some extra crushed garlic and ginger that I had in the fridge.
For the Seafood
I panicked a little, because firstly, I don't like crabsticks and I know how easy it is to overcook calamari/ squid. I wanted to strike the perfect balance between flavour absorption and tenderness. Thank goodness for my electric frying pan, because it definitely helped me achieve this. I switched the pan on, and threw in the remaining 400g of the garlic butter and squeezed to big lemons in and let that melt together. I also added an extra spoon of garlic and ginger to this, just incase there wasn't enough garlic! Once things were sizzling nicely I added the seafood (having previously chopped up the fish fillets to add to the mix), turned down the heat and popped the lid on. I let it simmer, stirring at 5 minute intervals, for about 15 minutes in total.
By this time, the rice was perfect and fluffy and the seafood was soft, tender and juicy and had made the most incredible seafood sauce all by itself in the pan (with the help of the generous amount of garlic butter and lemon juice of course!).
Including prep time, this dish took me a total of 45 minutes to make, which is a big difference to the 8 hours it took me to make paella!!
I will definitely be giving Paella another shot, but this seafood dish is one I will return to as an easy hack when that seafood craving hits.
