Jun 17th, 2009
Border Paella
After picking up some fresh local bell peppers from the farmer’s market, we hit the Rebar cookbook to see what would do them justice. The Border Paella looked easy and like something that would provide ample leftovers, so we put down the cookbook and got to chopping.
Quite a while was spent prepping, which shouldn’t have surprised us – this is a large dish that’s comprised mostly of finely chopped vegetables that we’ve made before – but the smell of the simmering onions, peppers, garlic, and spices were enough to convince us again that this recipe was a winner. Since we like a little more heat, we added some chipotle purée along with hot smoked paprika which turned out nicely, but stick to just the called-for sweet paprika if you don’t like the spicy. Although this dish doesn’t require any great culinary skill, it can take a bit of time, both for the chopping and for the cooking of the arborio rice.
After the dish was complete, we managed to resist the enticing smells long enough to follow the optional serving suggestion presented in the book: bell peppers stuffed with paella. We had two peppers of uneven size, so we cut them in half first and topped them off with a bit of goat feta before baking.
We’ll definitely make this recipe again, especially since the leftovers are at least as good as the original meal. Next time we may use a cheese that’s a bit more prone to melt (the feta was still solid after 15 minutes in the oven), but other than that and the optional heat, we wouldn’t change anything about this recipe.
Stupid question, but the recipe calls for 2 red and yellow peppers, does that mean 2 red peppers and 2 yellow peppers or just one of each colour?
thanks!
There are no stupid questions! It really depends on the size of your peppers – we used half a pepper per serving, but ours were large.
We love it and make this often!