SMOKED PAELLA

Get that summer holiday feeling all year round with our hot smoked paella, oozing with sun-baked smoky flavours from both spices and wood smoke. We used Maple chips to add just the right level of mellow smoke complementing the smoked paprika seasoning without overpowering the fish ingredients. Use a paella pan if you have one, or just a frying pan or large baking tray.

Smoked paella with maple smoking chips

1. Prepare your smoker. You’ll need a medium heat and once any flames have died back, add a large handful of pre-soaked maple chips to your smoker box and place the box on top of the coals. Place the paella pan on the grill rack and add the olive oil.

2. Finely chop the onion and garlic and slice up the red pepper. Cut the green beans into smaller pieces. Fry gently in the oil. Add the paella or arborio rice, coat with the oil and cook for around 5 minutes. Stir in the smoked paprika, saffron and chopped chorizo and cook for a further 3 minutes.

3. Back to the paella base, gradually add some of the chicken or fish stock, stir well.  Close the lid and allow to cook slowly until the liquid has been absorbed, then stir and add some more. The rice will take between 20 and 30 minutes to absorb all the liquid and sometimes more, depending on your BBQ heat.

4. Whilst the rice is cooking, prepare the baby octopus. Marinade the raw octopus in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice (with a little zest), salt and pepper for 10 to 20 minutes. We cooked the octopus separately on a grill rack over the BBQ. Once they curl and crisp up, they’re cooked. Put them to one side to add to the paella at the end. We sourced our wild whole baby octopus from The Fish Society and here’s a link to their product page

Baby octopus

5. Once the rice is tender and all the liquid is absorbed, gently stir in the grilled octopus. Cook for a further few minutes then remove from the heat, cover and leave for 5 minutes before serving.

Smoked Paella cooking on the BBQ

6. You can add other types of fish to this fish-based paella, or make a meat version with chicken or for an even more traditional approach use rabbit, though the advice is not to mix meat and fish in the same dish and not to overdo the amount of ingredients.

7. To serve, keep it simple. Paella would have been traditionally servcd straight from the pan or Paellera (big frying pan!). The dish originated in the rice growing areas on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, so the seasoned rice is the hero. Just a few cold beers is all you need to add to that wonderful holiday feeling …:)

Serving up smoked paella with a few beers