Don't Sweat the Aubergine

chicken pieces, in a wide pan that you can put into the oven (perhaps a wide casserole dish, or a frying pan with a detachable handle). 1 After cooking for 5 to 8 minutes on each side, they should be nicely browned. Remove them to a plate, and chuck away the oil. 2
    Add a little more oil to the pan, slice the chorizos thickly, and fry them. They should release their own, paprika-flavoured oil. When they have done so, and when they are browned, take them out of the pan and put them with the chicken.
    In the same pan, soften the onion, peppers and garlic; add a little more oil if you need it (but there should be enough). The peppers will produce some liquid; let this cook away. Tip in the rice, turn it with the vegetables, and cook it until it turns milky. Pour in the stock, and bring the pan to a simmering point. Cover the pan tightly with foil (or, if you’re using a casserole, with its lid), and put it on to the bottom shelf of a gas mark 4/180°C oven. After 30 minutes, take it out of the oven, uncover it, and add the chicken, chorizo, mussels, prawns, saffron and parsley, stirring them in gently. Cover again, and put back in the oven for 15 more minutes.
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VARIATIONS
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    Other meat and fish you might add include ham, snails (you can buy vacuum-packed ones) and clams (you prepare and cook them as you do mussels – see here ). Other vegetables include deseeded and chopped tomatoes ( see here ), peas, broad beans and green beans. The clams, peas and beans will need cooking before you add them, after 30 minutes.
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WHY YOU DO IT
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    1 • You don’t have to be authentic . This dish makes me nervous. Clearly, I lack the essential machismo – in Valencia, home of the most famous recipe, making paella is the men’s job. (I’m also short of confidence when faced with that other favourite masculine task, barbecuing.)
    Here’s what gets me worried. A real paella pan – a caldero, which is wide and shallow with handles, or the wide frying pan that you will need as a substitute – is much wider than the hotplates on cookers. The rice in the centre of the pan cooks more quickly than that at the outside, and may well stick and burn. The pan, in most recipes, is uncovered, so the liquid is absorbed into the rice and evaporates as well. After 20 minutes or so, you find that you have some cooked rice and some that has scarcely developed from the state it was in when packeted. You’re not supposed to stir it, though; the dish should not resemble a risotto. So you add more water, overcooking the central portion while you try to bring the rest to an edible condition.
    My compromise is to use a covered pan, and to put it in the oven. Because you’re going to leave it undisturbed, you need to be confident that you’ve added the right quantity of liquid to cook the rice and be absorbed by it. I hope that my suggestion – 1.25 litres of liquid to 400g of rice – works for you.
    2 • Throw away the chicken fat . Because, by the time you’ve fried the chorizo, you should have plenty of fat, and it will be nicer than the stuff the chicken exudes. If you fry the chorizo first, and then the chicken, you will probably have too much fat in the pan; and, if you discard any, you will lose some of the chorizo’s paprika-flavoured oil. Don’t throw the fat down the sink: it will congeal. I pour it into a saucer, then scrape it when cold into the bin.
Pilafs
    Basic pilaf . This is method 3 ( see here ), with the addition of spices. Alternative spellings, often found in your local Indian restaurant, include pilau and pulao. Before you add water, you turn the soaked and drained rice in oil, butter or ghee (clarified butter), with flavourings that might include cumin, coriander, cardamom, turmeric, allspice or cinnamon. If they’re finely ground, the spices will burn easily, so just turn them with the rice briefly.
    Fancier . Richard Whittington (
Home Food
) has a recipe for turmeric pilaf with raisins and flaked almonds. Adapting his recipe for 4 people, I’d recommend 220g long-grain rice, stock or water to cover the ingredients (see point 6 here , above), an onion, a pinch of allspice, a cinnamon stick, 4 cardamom pods, a tablespoon of raisins, a bay leaf, salt and 20g toasted flaked almonds. Slice the onion, soften it in oil or butter, then increase the heat and add the rice, turning it until it becomes milky; add the spices, turning them quickly without burning. Add the stock or water, cinnamon, cardamom, raisins, bay