Easy And Flavorful Black Seafood Rice Recipe

Not only does this Spanish black seafood rice look stunning, but it also tastes heavenly and is packed with delicious shellfish. If you love seafood and you love rice, then you’re going to love this, one of the most delicious, easy, and flavorful recipes you’ve ever tasted.

Why I ❤️ it • Recipe • Ingredients • Preparation

Spanish black seafood rice.

Why I ❤️ it

This stunning Spanish seafood black rice is one of my favorite dishes. For a seafood lover such as myself, it's just perfect: jam-packed with seafood and intense ocean flavors. 

This rice dish is known in some circles as black paella and speaks of summer and lazy days to me.

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Utensils and tools

• Medium pot or large saucepan
• Large skillet with lid

Ingredients

For the fish broth

• 2 fish heads, (about 1 pound [0.48 kilo] in total)
• Peels and heads of the whole shrimp listed below
• 12 strands of saffron threads
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 red onion, chopped
• A handful of chopped parsley
• 1 ½ teaspoon of salt, (or more, to taste)
• ½ teaspoon of freshly-cracked black pepper (or more, to taste)

For the rice

• ¼ cup of olive oil
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 large tomato, diced
• ¼ cup of peas
• ⅓ cup of pitted black olives
• 1 ounce of cuttlefish ink, [30 mililiters], or squid ink (about 1 tablespoon)
• 3 cups rice
• 2 pounds of shrimp (large, uncooked, and peeled), [1.8 kilo]
• 2½ pounds of seafood mixture with mussels, and clams [1.8 kilo]
• 1 quart of fish broth, (per instructions below)

Preparation

Before starting, please make sure you have all the ingredients and utensils ready.

1. Combining ingredients for the broth

Place fish heads, shrimp peels and heads, saffron, bay leaves, garlic, onion, and parsley in a large stockpot.

Add 1 quart [1 liter] of water.

2. Simmering the seafood broth

Cook over low heat for an hour, adding water as it becomes necessary to maintain the same level.

Once finished simmering, season with salt and pepper to taste (this is the level of salt the rice will have).

3. Sieving the broth

Sieve to get rid of solids. Set it aside.

4. Sautéeing ingredients

In a large skillet that has a lid, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper, tomato, and peas. Sauté for 30 seconds, or until heated through.

Add olives and ink, and mix well.

5. Adding the rice

Pour in broth (one quart [1 liter]) and lower the temperature to medium heat. When it breaks the boil add rice and mix well. Simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated.

Add shrimp and seafood medley. Mix well.

6. Cooking the rice

Lower temperature to low, cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer for 20 mins. Uncover and stir, moving rice from the top to the bottom and vice-versa.

Cover again and simmer for another 5 minutes. Rice should be firm but cooked through. If it becomes necessary cover and simmer for another 5 minutes.

7. Serving

Remove from the heat once cooked, and serve hot.

Variations

If you want to add more seafood, calamari and scallops are also great in it.

For a different but still lovely flavor, you can add a bit of chopped Spanish chorizo to the pan when you sautee the tomato and peas.

Top tips

The type of rice used in the original traditional Spanish is arborio rice (short grain rice), but I prefer using long-grain rice (or Carolina rice) instead. The instructions here would not work for arborio.

If your supermarket or fishmonger sells those mixed seafood packs, those are great and a less expensive way to make this black seafood paella.

Instead of a paella pan, you will need a large skillet for this recipe, which makes it more accessible to most people.

Serving suggestions

Garnish it with lemon wedges if you want. This rice is typically served alone, but you can have a salad as starters if you wish.

Inspiration

The original dish, by which this recipe was inspired, is the Arròs Negre from Catalunya. One thing you must know is that, as expected, there isn't just one recipe for this dish in its native Catalunya, but a connoisseur would immediately spot some differences between this one and theirs, but also the similarities:

"Arròs negre nicely demonstrates the lack of herbs, the flavour coming from the cuttlefish, stock, the onions and the ink. [...]  

I use only cuttlefish, but you could add monkfish or tiny peeled shrimp for a different flavour and texture, but just one or the other. Additional flavours come from the decorations. Mussels work fine if you cook them first (save the water for stock); their shells and yellow flesh add to the ‘look’.  

Roasted red peppers [...] look great but can add a very sweet taste that somehow doesn’t taste ‘black’. I use them, but let your taste dictate. I used prawns as decoration in this example, but I usually leave them out [...]."

Surf, turf, fin, skin, feet, and bleat: Catalan food and Arròs Negre

Nutritional information

Calories: 744kcal - Carbohydrates: 87g - Protein: 60g - Fat: 15g - Saturated Fat: 2g - Cholesterol: 491mg - Sodium: 2180mg - Potassium: 705mg - Fiber: 3g - Sugar: 3g - Vitamin A: 1005IU - Vitamin C: 46.5mg - Calcium: 290mg - Iron: 7.8mg

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