We recently bought a Paella pan from ALDI, and it is the most useful piece of kit! It's quite big at 39cm diameter, and makes a meal large enough for 4 people. It's now in regular use, several times a week, and we are loving the results. Despite its size it cooks nicely over one gas ring, but would work just as well on an electric hob.
Tonight's meal is shown above and was made as follows:
Bacon and vegetable rice
250g of Arborio rice
1 litre of vegetable stock (1 litre water and 2 veg stock cubes and 1 green OXO)
1 200g pack ALDI Smoked Bacon Lardons
1 onion chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 or 4 sticks of celery, cut small - we used the middle part with the leaves still on
1 courgette, sliced into 4 lengthwise and then each length cut into 1cm pieces
1 small orange pepper, deseeded
1/2 red pointed pepper, deseeded
handful of frozen sweetcorn
small handful of mangetout and fine French beans, chopped into 1cm lengths
1 finely sliced lemon grass stick
a few green olives, halved
1 small green bird's eye chilli, finely sliced
sprinkle of herbs (we used Herbes de Provence)
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
Put rice into paella pan, add stock, sweetcorn and bacon lardons, and stir using a non-scratching spatula (wood or silicon), heat through until rice is almost cooked, adding more boiling water as the stock is absorbed so the rice does not start to stick to the pan. Cooking the bacon lardons with the rice and stock gives the rice a lovely bacon flavour too.
Add the rest of vegetables except tomatoes, mixing well and cook for further 5 minutes until all is hot through. Add the tomatoes and heat for another minute.
Serve in bowls, enjoy!
It takes about half an hour to make (including preparation) and makes hardly any washing up too, win! win! :)
