While a British Sunday get-together calls for a roast dinner with potatoes and gravy, a Spanish Sunday is all about one thing only – rice! Every Sunday, families and friends get together to eat, drink and laugh over a huge plate of delicious, homecooked rice. This rice can take many forms: from the classic paella to arroz negro with squid ink, or gooey arroz meloso.
‘Meloso’, from the Spanish word for honey, ‘miel’, describes this dish perfectly, as stirring it and cooking it in stock leaves it plump, juicy and ever so slightly creamy. We’ve added red peppers, panceta and chorizo for a ruby-flecked rice, but you could swap these with prawns, pork, fish or the vegetables of your choice. As arroz meloso is stirred, you could make it in a saucepan without the bottom half getting burnt. However, if you have a paella pan gathering dust in your cupboard, this is an ideal time to whip it out!
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 large onion
1 red pepper
3tbsp olive oil (our favourite for cooking is from iloveaceite)
1 chicken breast
100g cured chorizo
100g panceta
2tbsp grated tomato
400g short-grain ‘paella’ rice – our favourite is SOS (available here)
2 litres hot stock (beef or chicken)
Instructions
- Dice the onion and red pepper into small pieces and add to your saucepan or paellera with the olive oil. Cook over a medium heat for a few minutes until the onion becomes translucent. Chop the chicken into small pieces and add to saucepan. Mix well and cook until the chicken is golden.
- Chop the chorizo and panceta into small pieces. Add to the saucepan with the tomato and cook for one minute. Then add the rice and mix thoroughly. Leave the rice to cook for around one minute until it becomes slightly translucent, and then add half the hot stock. Mix well and leave to cook on a high heat for 5 minutes.
- When the rice has absorbed most of the liquid, add half of the remaining stock and turn the heat to low. Leave to cook for 15 minutes, adding the remaining stock when needed and stirring from time to time to stop the bottom from sticking.
- Remove from heat and cover with a clean tea towel. Leave to rest for five minutes, and your arroz meloso is done!
