Not a traditional paella of course, but the modified paella recipe is a very versatile vehicle for adding whatever it is that you have to hand. The origin of it is similar to the fried rice in Asian cuisine, or risotto in Italian cuisine – a rice dish with whatever you have or is in season.
Usually I make it with just chicken and chorizo, or just seafood. But I both meat and seafood to hand so decided to do a bit of a ‘surf and turf’ paella. As I have been doing recently, this recipe has no added salt so is toddler and children friendly. If someone is allergic to seafood or you simply don’t like some of the ingredients, just don’t add it. It is unlikely to make the recipe less tasty as long as you’ve got the paella rice in there!
This is a one pot recipe for the busy family. Making enough for leftovers and freezer friendly into portions or ice cube trays ready for your little ones. I’ve added pimenton (Spanish paprika) for taste and colour but feel free to miss it out if you don’t have any or don’t want to use it. Even though this recipe uses no stock or added salt, you’ll be surprised how flavourful it is, purely from the ingredients that you use.
My cooking lately has been dominated by what I can make that the little one can enjoy too. I am also one for batch cooking to make the middle of week dinners a bit easier.
Finished articleServed with sweetcornfor the little one
Lasagne is a great dish to freeze as it can be portioned easily. I usually make it with more beef stock (usually use Bovril) and seasoning, including a dash of Worcestershire sauce in the beef but this time I have only used 1 beef stock for making 2 large trays of lasagne, so negligible really. As a consequence, the beef filling will not be as dark as you would normally expect and will be redder from the tomatoes. The first step of sauteeing the onions and garlic is crucial to allow caramelisation which gives a lot of the flavour. Browning the beef is also very important here. The beef browning process also evaporates some of the water that is in the beef as you don’t want the resulting beef mixture to be too wet.
A simple bit of pureeing to your desired consistency will be perfect for your little one. It certainly went down well in our household!
Oxtail stew fit for your baby! And you can have some too!
Oxtail stew with added veg for the little oneOxtail stew for youOxtail stew blended with cous cous for the little ones
Oxtail is probably not the most obvious thing to feed your little one. It is meltingly tender when stewed and full of collagen. Typical oxtail stew recipes use wine and stock in the cooking liquid which is the way I have always been cooking it. But I had some oxtail the other day and really wanted to share it with the little 👶 so I modified how I usually cooked oxtail but still making sure that it remains rich and tasty for us! Because oxtail is mainly bones, it creates its own stock when cooked so there really isn’t any need to add a stock cube which is, of course, high in salt.
Whilst adding a good red wine to your stewing liquid gives the stew another dimension, to be honest, I’d be more than happy to go without it in the recipe in the future. Except for the glass or two to go with the stew of course!
This recipe does take a long time to cook and the longer you cook it, the more tender the meat gets. So if you are able to plan ahead and cook it the day before as suggested, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise, if you are cooking on the day, give oxtail more time to stew if you can before eating. The cooking time in the oven can be extended as you prefer, just keep an eye on the stewing liquid although it shouldn’t dry out too much if you are using a heavy bottomed pot with a lid.
Using the approach of the trio of ‘humble beginnings‘ (aka mirepoix, holy trinity, soffrito, battuto, etc – a really good article explaining what these are at seriouseats.com) of garlic, onions and celery, the ‘beginnings’ of the stew flavours were set without the need for any salt at all.
Browning the oxtails first caramelises the meat, again adding an extra layer of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Browned oxtail ready to be used
Not to be too blasé about it, but the rest of the recipe is just about chucking all the rest of the ingredients into the cooking pot and let it stew. So it is actually quite an easy recipe. The vegetables you add to your stew can be any combination you like. A very versatile recipe.
Add all ingredients into the pot ready to bring to the boilAfter boiling and stewing in the oven‘Stewed’ overnightReheated ready to be servedServed with cous cous and green beans. Meat falls away from the bones
I served it with cous cous this time but you can serve it with rice, bread etc. anything that can soak/mop up the rich sauce. With no wine, no salt and lots of vegetables, it’s a perfect recipe to diversify your little ones’ taste adventure. There were certainly no leftovers from either the boss 👶 or the other minion 👨!
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