Chorizo Chicken Paella

Ingredients 

• 450 g/ 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken thighs
• 300 g/ 10.6 oz Spanish chorizo Note 2
• 1 medium onion about 100 g/ 3.5 oz
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1 large bell pepper
• 60 ml/ 2 fl. oz/ ¼ cup dry white wine
• 1 medium tomato about 160 g/ 5.7 oz
• 2 roasted red peppers from a jar about 150 g/ 5.3 oz
• [2 teaspoons sweet smoked paprika Note 3]
• 1 large pinch of saffron
• 1 ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 400 g/ 14 oz/ 2 cups short-grain rice Arborio, Bomba
• 1.2 liter/ 41 fl. oz/ 5 cups homemade or low-sodium chicken stock
• 120 g/ 4.2 oz/ 1 cup peas
• small bunch of parsley
• lemon wedges to serve

Instructions

1. Cut the chicken into cubes and the sausage into rings. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cook both, stirring often, for about 5 minutes. Remove from the pan. Chorizo releases a lot of fat during cooking, discard it, leaving only 1-2 tablespoons of it in the pan.
2. Finely chop the onions and the garlic. Dice the fresh red bell pepper. Place them in the same skillet, add a pinch of salt and cook slowly until the vegetables are softer about 5 minutes.
3. Deglaze with the white wine and stir for about 1 minute, until the wine is mostly evaporated.
4. While the sofrito is cooking, dice the tomato and the roasted red peppers. Add them to the sofrito and cook for 5 minutes more.
5. Add paprika, saffron, and salt, and stir shortly.
6. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil, add the rice, chicken, and chorizo. Stir, cover tightly, and bring to a boil again. Cook on low heat for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan a couple of times during cooking to make sure that it cooks evenly and doesn’t get burned on one side.
7. Add the peas, nestle carefully into the rice without disturbing the bottom, and continue cooking for 10 minutes.
8. Remove from the heat and let sit, covered, for about 10 minutes.
9. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with lemon wedges.

Notes

1. Pan: use a large paella pan if you have one. I always use my large and rather shallow Dutch oven with a diameter of 30 cm/12-inches and a depth of 8 cm/3-inches. Or use a large (at least 30 cm/12.inch diameter) cast-iron pan, preferably one that has a lid. If you don’t have a lid, cover the pot tightly with aluminum foil during cooking.
2. The cured Spanish sort sold in links. You might need 1 or 2 links, depending on their size. I use semi-smoked, spicy chorizo.
3. Preferably good quality sweet Spanish smoked paprika – Pimenton.