Paella

gingin_2

Hi,

I am literally in my kitchen making dinner now and have a problem with rice for paella. I thought I had a new box of paella rice but it's only a third full and I need at least a half. It's not going to be enough for all of us. I have loads of basmati, would you mix the two as the majority will be paella rice or would you just go with basmati - but I don't think that will have the same effect?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

rising_from_the_ashes

Ohhh no, just bumping up a bit as I've no idea (sorry) but it may be too late ......

gingin_2

Thanks rising I've got 10 minutes until the rice needs to go in, so if anyone does know it would be great, otherwise I think we will just use the original rice and go the small portion route ( boo hoo)

European_Citizen

I wouldn't mix them as different types of rice usually have different starch content and different cooking times: you may end up with half your rice being mushy and the other half being raw. You could use just basmati rice only but the texture would suffer a bit. Can't you just send a member of the household to the store?

zippychick

I would stick with what you know and go for smaller portions. Too big a risk for it all to go wrong!!!I think paella is shorter grain and paella rice is longer grain - and i see the previous poster has mentioned different absorbencies etc

In fact i think mixing it would be a royal disaster

zippychick

Ill merge you with the paella thread later. Also i just edited my previous post with more info

gingin_2

Thanks everyone, I guess it will be a high protein paella!

zippychick

im sure it will be delicious no matter what.

Bet some expert comes along and says it would be fine. If you werent mixing it it mightnt be a bad experiment but if you ruined it all that would be catrastophic !!!

can you whip up a very quick starter /filler?

taxsaver

What about cooking some of the basmati separately and then adding it toward the end of the cooking of the paella? That way you won't have problems with different rices and will still get the extra bulk.

zippychick

Thats a good idea taxsaver!!!!

What did you end up doing ?