Anthony's Seafood Paella

My apologies as well for the lack of recent posts but we are both back on board now, and this is a great recipe to get us back under way.  There are 2 key points to this recipe, the first is the rice, you really should try your best to get hold of Calasparra rice, you can use other short grain rice (not arborio) but none are as good as this.  The 2nd is to really concerntrate on making a good sofrito, the one I have listed is easy and really nice in many types of paella, not just seafood.

Ingredients
Serves 4-6

To make sofrito paste:
200 ml extra virgin olive oil
15 ml Spanish sherry vinegar (red wine vinegar is ok if you dont have any)
3 large tomatoes, ripe is best
6 garlic cloves, peeled
1 shallot
6 roasted peppers
1½ tsp saffron threads
½ bunch thyme leaves
½ bunch mint
½ bunch coriander
1 bunch chives
½ bunch parsley
½ tsp spicy paprika
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sweet paprika

Paella:
2 tbsp sofrito paste per person
65g Calasparra rice per person
150 ml fish stock per person
2 blue swimmer crabs, quartered and cleaned
6 king prawns
12 squid rings
10 large  mussels
4 baby octopus, cleaned

Method

1. In a food processor puree all the sofrito ingredients until you have a smooth consistency.
2. Pour fish stock into a pot and begin to heat it.
3. In a very hot large paella pan or non stick frying pan, pour enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan.
4. Add rice and cook until it changes colour from white to transparent. This is a very important step to making a good paella because we need to cook the starch off the rice.
5. After a couple of minutes, add the sofrito paste. Cook with the rice for a minute.
6. Add seafood and spread evenly around the pan. Sauté for a couple of minutes.
7. Add hot fish stock and let it cook until stock is evaporated. Don't stir the rice.
8. Once all of the stock has evaporated, turn the heat to low for 5 minutes to ensure you get a nice crust on the bottom of the pan.

Ant