Seafood Paella with Ivan Lucas in Madrid,Spain

Paella in Madrid

We arrived in Madrid and absorb the vibe of the city!!

Travelling with Sunga is adventureous. There is always some great happenings coming up. A few days ago we got invited by her friend Ivan Lucas to cook a traditional Paella with his mum in Madrid.

Ivan is an artist and nomad living between the orient and europe . Somehow he had lost his heart in India where he had spend the last 2 years painting, travelling and organizing art in India and europe.

Sunga and Ivan met at the trainstation platform in Bangalore for the first time. When Ivan saw Sunga sketching a bridge he decided to go over and introduce himself to her.

It turned out that both were taking the same nighttrain to Hampi so they had a lot of time sharing their artworks during the journey. And this is where their friendship started,somewhere between Bangalore and Hampi. Since this day India both artist kept in touch.

Ivan is now back in Madrid for a couple of months to visit his family and to contact artists from his hometown and join several art projects.He will be leaving for India in December 2014 to participate in the “ Story of light festival” in Goa together with artists from all over the world.

Here you can see more about Ivan and his journey in this video:

https://vimeo.com/108444518

Ivan’s parents were so wonderfully welcoming and warm hearted. We got the chance to cook a traditional “Paella” in a proper Spanish home.

What else could we desire? While Ivan and Sunga were busy painting a wall together in the garden I jumped into the kitchen to follow every step his Mama did for the Paella and wrote down the recipe for you.

Ingredients for the Seafood Paella ( serves 5 hungry people)

200g fresh clams

200g fresh squid rings

500g fresh mussles

200g fresh Prawns

200g fresh shrimps

1 red bellpepper ,cut in big chunks

2 tomatos diced

2 Onions Roughly chooped

1 chicken leg cut into big pieces

1,5 liter of homemade fishstock or from the supermarket

¼ cup of olive oil

salt,pepper

1 kg of short grain Paella rice

approx. 1 tbsp saffron

1tbsp turmeric for yellow colour

First and the oil to a frying pan.Season the chicken with pepper and salt and fry until golden brown from both sides. Remove the chicken from the pan.

In the same oil add now the bellpepper ,onions, turmeric and sautee for 5 minutes on mediumheat .

Then add the tomatos, clams and mussles. Let it simmer for 2-3 minutes. Remove the mussles and clams when cooked and put aside to place them on the paella later for the final minutes of cooking.

Now add the rice and and fold it into the mixture and pour in the fishstock shortly after. Let the liquid get absorbed by the rice for 10-12 minutes without stiring the mixture too much.

After that put the chicken and back into the pan. Add saffron and give it a gentle stir. Let simmer for 5 minutes and add the squidrings and shrimps to the pan. Cook another 8-10 minutes. Add salt and taste.

Finally place the mussles, prawns and clams on top of the pan and cover with a teatowel. Let the Prawns steam for 8 minutes on the surface of the Paella.

Check on the rice if it is al dente and taste.Finally turn on high heat for a minute to get a nice roasting flavor on the rice at the bottom. The Paella is perfect when its juicy on the surface and browned on the bottom of the pan.