If you have one and a half to two hours of free time and you want to cook something tasty and experiment with the possibilities of rice, then you can try cook vegetable paella with mushrooms. And at first glance it seems boring - just another rice with vegetables, but... Paella, properly prepared, is something special, aromatic, light, satisfying, tasty and melting in your mouth. After all, this recipe is from European cuisine. Europe is rich in delicious dishes, let's remember, with, and much more.
For some reason, many dishes of European cuisines, which are widely known in the world, were born in the communities of the poor, when everything that was at hand was mixed in order to somehow get saturated. This is both a Greek salad, and paella is no exception. Originally, paella is a dish of the inhabitants of Valencia, when everything they had and were rich in (seafood, poultry, vegetables) was mixed with rice and cooked over an open fire in special frying pans with the same name - paella.
Paella has several important and mandatory components, and everything else can vary depending on your imagination, season and culinary preferences:

1. paella frying pan (if not available, any wide frying pan with a thick bottom and high sides so that your paella does not turn into a terrible mess called rice porridge)
2. rice – and not just any rice, but a special variety. Usually these are round-grained varieties that are able to absorb the taste of the broth, do not become overcooked and are not sticky. Do not use regular rice or long grain rice for paella. It is better to use Arborio (easy to find in the supermarket). Rice for paella is not washed first, otherwise there is a risk that it will turn out to be rice porridge.
3. broth - paella must be prepared with broth (this is why paella cannot be made so quickly without pre-prepared broth)
4. saffron is an essential component of paella (in extreme and rare cases, it can of course be replaced with turmeric). Gives not only an appetizing color, but also a unique aroma
5. olive oil– real, aromatic, first cold pressed.

Ingredients for paella

1. 500 ml vegetable broth (water, cabbage, peppers, carrots, spices)
2. 300 g Arborio rice
3. Seasonal vegetables (tomato (2 pcs.), eggplant (1 pc.), zucchini (1 pc.), young cabbage (a third of a small vegetable), sweet pepper (1 pc.), mushrooms – 200-300 g)
4. Olive oil, 3-4 tbsp for sautéing vegetables
5. A pinch of saffron (or half a teaspoon of turmeric)

Cooking vegetable paella

A few words about the cooking technology, which can be divided into several stages:

1. Preparing the broth - we take vegetables that we have and don’t really mind, because... We will then throw them away (carrots, a few leaves of cabbage, bell peppers, greens, if you have celery, you can also use it) and put them in 700 ml of cold water and let it all cook under the lid, reducing the heat after boiling. Also, after boiling, add spices (black peppercorns, bay leaf, dill, parsley, rosemary). Cook until the vegetables are ready, add salt to taste at the end. Important: if you want a tasty broth, then vegetables must be placed in cold water, then they will give all their aroma to the water; if on the contrary you need delicious vegetables, then throw them into already boiling water. Once the broth is turned off, you need to add saffron to it. And let the broth rest.

While the broth is cooking, let's start with the vegetables...

1. First, they all need to be cut into cubes of the same (+/-) size, or shredded in the case of cabbage, for example. A little about vegetables - basically, choose whatever you like. The only must-haves are probably tomatoes, and it’s unlikely that you’ll put potatoes in your paella. Pour olive oil into a heated frying pan and begin sautéing the vegetables. The order, of course, depends on the length of the required cooking time - in this case, first the pepper, then the eggplant along with mushrooms, then the zucchini along with young cabbage. Bring the vegetables to a state of semi-preparedness, add the tomato, stir.
2. Immediately after the tomato, add the rice. Fry it all over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, don’t even stir the contents of the pan, but shake it. Pour in the broth so that there is 1 finger more than the rice (approximately, because of course everything will depend on your frying pan). You will need approximately 400 ml of broth, about 100 ml. You can top it up during the process so you don’t overdo it right away. We turn the gas to almost the lowest setting and the paella is stewed. However, the paella should not be stirred, especially when the rice has almost absorbed the liquid. There is also no need to cover the paella with a lid. You can just add a little broth if necessary (of course, ideally guess the proportion from the very beginning).
3. When the rice is in Al Dente condition (just a little before it is fully cooked), and the rice should absorb all the moisture, you need to turn on the burner at almost full power for literally 1-2 minutes (carefully so as not to burn). The hallmark of mastery in paella cooking is the crust that results from cooking without stirring. That's it, turn off the burner, cover the paella with a lid and let it stand for 15-20 minutes (during this time, the al dente rice will turn into completely cooked, and any moisture that might still remain will be absorbed).

The hardest thing about this recipe is guessing the amount of liquid and refraining from stirring.

Paella is a national Spanish dish: aromatic rice with turmeric, saffron and fresh vegetables.

Vegetable paella is necessarily prepared from rice, with tomatoes, sweet peppers, legumes, garlic, onions, olives and lemon, we can say that these are the basic ingredients. There are also basic spices: turmeric, hot pepper, saffron. However, you can always add or replace vegetables and spices to suit your taste, for example, vegetables such as broccoli, green beans, artichokes, zucchini, green peas, etc. go well with rice.

To prepare paella with vegetables we will need:

• 200 gr. rice
• 0.5 teaspoon ground hot red pepper (the dish will be very spicy!)
• 1 piece sweet pepper (preferably yellow)
• 100 gr. beans of any kind (canned or pre-cooked)
• 100 gr. green peas
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 5 tbsp. spoons of olive oil
• 1 medium onion
• 1 large tomato (you can use 6 cherry tomatoes)
• 10 pcs. maslin
• 2 pcs. bay leaf
• 0.5 tsp turmeric
• 0.5 teaspoons saffron
• 4 black peppercorns
• 100 ml. red wine
• 400 ml. vegetable or mushroom broth

Paella with vegetables and aromatic spices

Cut the onion into cubes, cut the garlic cloves into four parts. Sweet pepper- large straws.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry vegetables for 4-5 minutes.

Add turmeric, bay leaf, black peppercorns and leave to fry for another half a minute. Add rice.

Pour wine over rice and mix all ingredients thoroughly. After 4-6 minutes, when the wine has noticeably evaporated, add saffron and evaporate the remaining wine until the end.

Add vegetable broth to the rice. After 20 minutes, when almost all the broth has boiled away, add large diced tomatoes to the rice, canned beans, peas and olives.

Mix everything well, wait 2-3 minutes. and remove from heat. Cover the paella with a lid and wait 10-12 minutes for the beans to warm through.

Before serving, garnish the rice with vegetables with lemon slices.

Bon appetit!

Paella is considered traditional Spanish dish, although the Spaniards themselves admit that paella, which has gained worldwide fame and love, belongs to and symbolizes only one region of the country - Valencia. Now this dish can be found on the menu of every Spanish restaurant and in most European restaurants. It has a lot in common with Italian risotto. In any case, the main ingredients of both dishes are the same - rice and olive oil. Although paella must also contain tomatoes and saffron, no matter what you add to this dish besides the base.

In Spain itself, there are almost three hundred varieties of paella - it is prepared with meat, minced meat, fish, and various seafood. There is also vegetable paella, which we will teach you how to cook. In the absence of a special frying pan with two handles, from which paella gets its name, you can use any large frying pan with a wide bottom and thick walls. Do not cook this dish in a thick layer in a small dish, otherwise it will lose its flavor and will not be as juicy as it should be.

Greetings to all dear friends! Some people don't eat meat. Someone is on a diet.

Vegetable paella is the perfect dish for such moments. Because it contains a large amount of vegetables. You can take any vegetables that are available at this time of year. In the winter season, you can use frozen vegetables, but not canned ones. Vegetable paella is good because you can put it in bell pepper, green beans, green young garlic mushrooms, asparagus, artichokes, eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli.

To prepare paella, I took the following ingredients:

• Eggplant 1pc
• Zucchini 1 piece
• Green beans 200 gr
• Red pepper 1 piece
• Green pepper 1 piece
• Onion 1 piece
• Rice 300 gr
• Garlic 5 cloves
• Ground red pepper 1 teaspoon
• Oil, salt, saffron
• Vegetable broth cube.

We wash and clean all the vegetables. We cut it as you like, into cubes or strips.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, first add vegetables that release little liquid. Such as bell peppers, beans, onions and fry them well over high heat for 5 or 10 minutes. Then add the rest of the vegetables - zucchini, cauliflower. Fry everything together for another 5 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, add chopped garlic. Add grated tomato or tomato paste half a glass. Mix everything and pour into vegetables hot water so that they are well covered with water.

Add ground red pepper, bouillon cube and saffron or food coloring if you don’t have saffron to the vegetables.

Let the vegetables boil for a few minutes. Taste the salt and add more salt if it's not enough. Add rice as shown in the photo.

If you add rice in this manner, then, as the Spaniards say, it will be just the amount necessary for normal boiling of rice. I didn't add enough water, so I had to top it up during the cooking process.

Stir the rice with the vegetables, reduce the heat to low and leave to cook until tender, stirring occasionally.

In about half an hour our vegetable paella is ready. In Spain, restaurants and bars usually serve lemon to juice the paella. Whoever likes it. But even without lemon, paella is very delicious dish. Bon appetit and see you again.

The "correct" sequence is:
1. Fry in oil (I use oil generously!) meat (rabbit, chicken, pork, chorizo ​​sausage... you can have a little bit of everything, you can do one thing from the list 200 grams, or you can do nothing, just sauté onions and garlic until transparent) with onions and garlic (you can do without onions, as in Spain) and spread them carefully with a slotted spoon, leaving as much oil as possible in the pan!, semi-finished products on a separate plate. If you only overcooked the onion and garlic, then don’t add anything.
2. Fry the seafood in the same oil for literally 2-3 minutes and put it on another!!! plate.
3. Pour the rice into the same remaining oil and fry it until transparent, this is about 2 minutes, then add 100-150 grams of white wine and let it soak into the rice... yes, yes... that's right!!! and again put the rice from the frying pan into a separate plate. If there is no space or a third plate, then put it on a plate with meat.
4. Place chopped tomatoes in a frying pan and fry and simmer bell peppers until the tomatoes are softened; you can add more oil before this if there is little left. You can add your favorite spices and salt to this vegetable brew.
5. Next, return everything to the pan. And here the whole subtlety is in the sequence!!! - first, mix the meat and simmer in a tomato-pepper fry for 5 minutes, then pour in the broth with saffron, mix everything, then add the fried rice, you can mix everything, but I just level it on top so that the rice is evenly submerged in the broth and another 5- Cook for 10 minutes, at this time we taste for salt and spices, you can add more.
6. The rice is almost ready, the broth has almost been absorbed into the rice. Place fried seafood on top. Press them in a little and gently submerge them in the rice. In conclusion, if you want something super and elegant!, you can picturesquely put on top a few raw large shrimps in the shell, mussels in the shell - they will open, squid rings - they will be ready and will be super tender, here you can also sprinkle chopped herbs on top or spices to taste and desire and stick in decoratively cut lemon. Turn off the heat, soak for 5-10 minutes and set to the table!
To make the correct (as I described!) paella, there are two ways: Either use 3 additional plates, see above, or 2 frying pans.
This is the 2-pan option. On one, meat and onions are cooked and rice is fried there, followed by the addition of wine, on the other (the one that goes on the table!), tomato frying is prepared in parallel, broth is added to the finished frying pan, and then rice with meat and onions is poured out of the first frying pan, and while the rice arrives, the seafood is fried in the first vacated frying pan, you can immediately put the seafood on the rice without frying, but each additional frying makes the dish tastier!
And keep trying!!! in the process, adding salt, spices, dried paprika, if there is no saffron... play with the taste and intensity of it... you can add a little sugar, you can add a little natural vinegar... just a little, depending on the situation, because the same tomatoes can be both sweet and sour, and can be neutral, like bell peppers... and the cook compensates and evens out everything...
I find it more convenient with one frying pan and 3 plates, because... two frying pans on a household stove are a bit cramped and require extra attention, otherwise it will burn; when working with one frying pan, the likelihood of a mistake is less.