Easy paella with chicken and chorizo.

I've made various countdown lists over the years on this weblog. About a decade ago, I counted down my top ten vegetables. Must have been a slow week at work. Number one was the onion. An unusual choice perhaps. But when regarding the question as 'what vegetable could you least do without' the onion moves into the box seat.

The following recipe is an example, built on a foundation of four members of the onion family, and crowned by a fifth. This 'assembly' version of paella is good if you don't have one of those tractor-wheel size vessels large enough to house the whole thing while cooking, or a stove big enough to handle it.

I started by frying a generous cup and a half of combined chopped leek, white onion, red ('Spanish') onion and garlic in peanut oil for about five minutes, placing this mixture into a second large pan when just translucent. Then I fried a large cubed chicken breast and a sliced chorizo sausage in the same pan, so that the meat took up the combined oniony flavour: then into the second pan. The breast meat should be just cooked through, or it will dry out.

The vegetables, prepared earlier, came next. Chopped into bite-size pieces: one sweet long red capsicum, four small mushrooms, one green capsicum and one zucchini. Whole: two dozen whole cherry tomatoes and the same number of pitted olives. These all went into the same pan in which the onion mixture and then the meats had been cooked, aggregating the respective flavours into the vegetables as they fried. I added some flaked dried chili and morrocan spice and cooked until the vegetables starting browning and the tomatoes wilted.

Meanwhile I had cooked a cup of long-grain rice, adding some salt and turmeric, the latter to bring it to a pale yellow-gold. Inmediately the vegetables were done and moved into the second pan now on a low heat to keep the contents hot, I tipped the boiled rice, still with a small amount of cooking fluid, into the first pan, fired it up, and stirred it around. This went straight onto a large communal serving bowl, with the meat and vegetables loaded on top. Finish with a shower of chopped spring onions and parsley.