In this special coronavirus cooking video, The Peasant explains the traditional method for making a full English paella. There are five stages.
En este video especial de cocina coronavirus, El Campesino explica el método tradicional para hacer una paella inglesa completa. Hay cinco etapas.
Part 1: Pour a gin & tonic and wash your hands vigorously
Etapa 1: Vierte un gin tonic y lávate las manos vigorosamente
In this video The Peasant demonstrates the English ingredients and explains to Spanish viewers the reasoning behind the method and the differences between a full English paella and the more primitive version of the dish produced in Valencia.
En este video, El Campesino explica los ingredientes de una paella inglesa completa y el razonamiento detrás del método. Tambien explica las diferencias entre una paella inglesa completa y la versión más primitiva del plato producido en la región de Valencia.
Part 2: Melt the butter in the paella pan and pour another gin & tonic
Etapa 2: Derrita la mantequilla en la paellera y vierta otro gin tonic
While the vegetables are cooking over a gentle heat in the paella pan, it is time to have another gin & tonic and complain about the donkey trampling the Spanish flag in the mud. The Peasant explains – as the choking smoke rises from the butter in the paella pan – why butter is entirely unsuitable for this purpose. And that is why the Spanish use olive oil… But we British always thrive in adversity. So that explains the enthusiasm for Brexit (and butter).
Mientras las verduras se cocinan a fuego lento en la paellera, es hora de tener otro gin tonic y quejarse de que el burro pisotea la bandera española en el barro. El campesino explica - mientras que el humo asfixiante sale de la mantequilla en la paellera - por qué la mantequilla no es adecuada para este propósito. Y es por eso que los españoles usan aceite de oliva ... Pero los británicos siempre prosperamos en la adversidad. Eso explica el entusiasmo por Brexit (y mantequilla).
Part 3: Add the battered cod, pork sausages and smoked bacon
Etapa 3: Agregue el bacalao rebozado, las salchichas de cerdo y bacon ahumada
In this stage, The Peasant explains another key difference. The typical Valencian paella will contain both fish and shellfish but in the full English paella, only battered cod is tossed into the mix. This is a paella based on the flavour of fish & chips: a national dish created by a nation of pirates, plundering fish from French waters and potatoes from the poor natives of the Americas.
En esta etapa, El Campesino explica otra diferencia clave. La paella valenciana típica contendrá tanto pescado como maricones, pero en la paella inglesa completa, solo se agrega bacalao rebozado a la mezcla. Esta es una paella basada en el sabor del famoso "fish & chips" inglés: un plato nacional creado por una nación de piratas, saqueando pescado de las aguas francesas y patatas de los pobres nativos de las Américas.
Part 4: More gin and tonic* and vigorous handwashing
Etapa 4: Más gin tonic** y lavado de manos vigoroso
It is time to wash the Spanish flag that has been pulled down by Morris donkey and trampled in mud. This must be done using a gentle liquid hand-washing soap for delicate fabrics. The more hand-washing the better when preparing any coronavirus dish.
Es hora de lavar la rojigualda que fue arrastrada por el burro Morris y pisoteada en el barro. Esto debe hacerse usando una jabon de lavado a mano para prendas delicadas. Cuanto más se lave las manos, mejor, al preparar cualquier plato de coronavirus.
*Alcohol aware: Drink in moderation. One 75cl bottle of gin should be sufficient to cook a paella; or 1 litre for a celebrity blog chef.
**Alcohol y salud: Beba con moderación. Una botella de 75cl de ginebra debería ser suficiente para cocinar una paella; o 1 litro para un famoso blog chef.
Part 5: The final touches before serving. And if you have been touched, or touched things you shouldn’t, like your private parts, don’t forget to wash your hands. (Vigorously.)*
Stage 5: Los toques finales antes de servir. Y si te han tocado, o tocó cosas que no debería, como sus partes privadas, no olvides lavarte las manos. (Vigorosamente.)**
As The Peasant reads some emails from appreciative followers of the blog, Matilde donkey walks past outside the kitchen window, adding to the rustic atmosphere in which this full English paella is being prepared. It is time to wash hands vigorously again, have another gin and tonic, and serve up the paella with traditional English poppadoms.
Mientras El Campesino lee algunos correos electrónicos de apreciados seguidores del blog, la burra Matilde pasa frente a la ventana de la cocina, lo que se suma al ambiente rústico en el que se prepara esta paella inglesa completa. Es hora de volver a lavarse las manos vigorosamente, tomar otro gin tonic y servir la paella con poppadoms ingleses tradicionales. * Obsessive-compulsive behaviour: handwashing. If you feel this is becoming a problem, or indeed antisocial, please seek advice from a psychiatrist. **Comportamiento obsesivo-compulsivo: lavado de manos. Si cree que esto se está convirtiendo en un problema, o incluso antisocial, solicite el asesoramiento de un psiquiatra.
Matilde – continuing the culinary theme, begins a regular food blog here soon. She was staring at the sausages in my paella and salivating when I sat down to eat. The silly moo donk always takes a keen interest in inappropriate food. Hmm… for an Andalusian donkey, that’s very English
Matilde continuará con el tema culinario, comenzando una blog de cocina aqui en breve. Ella estaba mirando y salivando a las salchichas en mi paella cuando me senté afuera a comerla. La burra avacada siempre tiene un gran interés en la comida inapropiada. Hmm... para burra andaluza, eso es muy inglés.
Equus Asinus 
I have sent this on to two or more American friends so that they can acculturate to los localos Espanos. Thank you very much and I wish I were nearer you, so we could commiserate in a proper manner.
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Thanks Jim: yes share it with as many as you like. As the coronavirus spreads in the USA, I imagine you are all getting into the hand-washing routine as well. Like me you live in the countryside, so we are fortunate, aren’t we? Must be terrible being cooped up in a flat in a city in this horrible dangerous time. I thought about you the other day, as it happens. I washed my old Orthodox wool prayer rope (you know, those 100-knot ones) as I had last used it in Santa Ana in Sella for Sunday Mass a couple of weeks ago, and it had been sitting on the pew… I thought I can’t take chances. It hasn’t been washed since 1984 when it was blessed by the wise old Archbishop Anthony of Sourozh (R.I.P.) at the Russian Orthodox cathedral in Knightsbridge. I was reminded that I should read The Way of a Pilgrim again. Keep me up to date with the experience of the health crisis in the USA as you experience it. Stay safe.
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Oh, Gareth, I do hope you have a really good hand-cream! I had just decided that I could let up on the hand-washing, now that UK is in (almost as good as) lock-down. I shopped yesterday, so now have a week ahead confined to my own home – hoping no contaminated surfaces to touch here. I loved your blog and video, but obviously won’t be trying the recipe. I hope Matilde will have something more to my taste. Many thanks for helping to keep us amused in these frightening times. Stay well.
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Estimado Campesino
Hubiera escrito antes pero tras pasar por el súper Día de mi pueblo, todavía me falta la harina Hovis ya que en su receta, no se había puesto la cantidad de agua adecuada para que el arroz se queda en su punto. Total, en vez de llegar a la paella inglesa cómo díos manda, me pasó de meloso hasta solución acuosa. Cómo Vd. mencionó la importancia de este paso ‘harinoso’ para corregir el efecto piscina, me le dirijo con fin de conseguir los pasos a seguir para que mi arroz se deshidrata algo.
Atentamente y gracias de antemano.
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That sounds very nice; actually Gareth and by the way I always wash my Private Parts and then wash my hands! Washing my hands many times a day, particularly when I’ve been down my Wine Cellar sniffing up the Angels share from the Wine Barrels at 13% alcohol (p.s. Pálinka is better at 65% alcohol plus!). Anyway your English Paella sounds very nice, although I did think that you were getting a wee bit Nostalgic with the Battered Cod and Pork Sausages (sounding a bit like a Brexiteer – ha, ha!!).
Anyway exchanging the Gin and Tonic part for Hungarian Pálinka I can settle down and enjoy it with you!! ¡Buen provecho!
And don’t be too hard on Morris the Donk will you!!
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Hello Liz,
This is Rubí donkey. I am doing the self-isolating in the stable today. I thought I’d do the self-isolating for practice in case a pangolin-bat-plague comes up the road and catches us unawares: I can see the corner of the road through a draughty hole inthe stable wall that was cause by Morris eating the weatherproofing and the split can outer sun shield.
To cut a long story much shorter than it would be if I kept on about Morris and the eating of stables, which is a flaming nuisance frankly; that’s why I did not write my Rubí Tuesday blog yesterday, in preparation for posting on Tuesday. Not becuse of Morris eating the stable, I mean, but becuse of me doing the self-isolatings in here and becuse the wi-fi connection didn’t reach as far as the stable. But we have now discovered that if Morris stands halfway between The Peasant’s house and the stable with his ears rotating to act as a wi-fi range extender, I can get the signal on the old discarded laptop which The Peasant gave me which has a bigger keyboard suitable for hooves. Even though it’s only Windows 10, it works and if you’re a donkey and need a laptop, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Morris’s idea of using his ears as a repeater signal: honestly I just thought it wouldn’t work. Not that I’m an IT expert but just an Eeyore: I believe most things don’t work. And that would have been just be Another Thing that didn’t work, which I could add to the list of things that didn’t work, and that would have been fine. But it did work, surprisingly, so here I am. It prolly won’t work tomorrow.
So today, doing the self-isolations like you, I am acting as The Peasant’s secretary. You might call it teleworking from home. The reason being The Peasant is all tired and emotional. Not – for the reason most people in the UK is all tired and emotional – becuse the pangolin-bat-plague, or becuse Stanley Johnson is being interviewed on the telly again and nobody knows why. But The Peasant is all tired and emotional due to Morris trampling the Spanish flag in the mud and worry that in these times of extra patriotism during a national State of Pandemonium, letting your donkeys loose to do Morris dancing on the Spanish flag in a muddy field might lead to The Peasant’s martial arrest, a kangaroo court hearing and fast deportation to Tierra del Fuego.
Morris is now filled with remorse. He only wanted to see what the flag tasted like. He said in fact it didn’t taste very nice and it was prolly made in China so we should never buy our flags from China ever again. Or indeed anything.
Well, Liz I’m glad you are safely confined to your own home with no contaminated surfaces but if you are joining in the self-isolations, what you really need to watch out for is people eating holes in the wall. It gets draughty. You also said you “obviously” won’t be trying the recipe for English paella that The Peasant put up on the Interweb. I didn’t quite know why it was obvious. Then The Peasant said you were a vegetarian. So – in order to consider your request – I said to Matilde that when she starts her food articles, she should do something from time to time for vegetarians. She said, “Leave the food to me, and just stick to what you know about, which is not very much,” and then she kicked Morris, who didn’t bother biting her (on account of his being filled with remorse, which lowers his testosterone level). But I could see I had planted an idea, so you may look forward to some interesting recipes from her.
Yours in the expectation that when I press send it will fail,
Rubí donkey
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Hola Estimado Señor Buhorojo,
El súper Dia es el principal problema no las recetas en este blog. Súper Dia es para plebeyos: compre en Consum o Mercadona.
Cuando Matilde Donkey comience sus artículos de comida, espero que no tengamos muchas quejas todas las semanas sobre “No puedo encontrar el tipo de zanahorias recomendado para el pastel de zanahoria” o “el tipo de fruta arándano en tu artículo sobre autodefensa no es rival para un palo puntiagudo.” Todos necesitamos tener un sentido de la proporción en estos tiempos preocupantes. Sino es un gasto de tiempo para todos/todas en tonterías superficiales cuando todos/todas necesitamos unirnos/unirnas al esfuerzo nacional para salvar vidas.
Y cuando dices que hay que “corregir el efecto piscina,” esto es falso: todas las piscinas en esta costa, desde la Costa Brava hasta Tarifa estan cerrados mientras dure la guerra contra la plaga murciélago-pangolin, si las piscinas contienen arroz o no contienen arroz. Y lo se, porque tengo burra amiga que trabaja como burrocrata en la gran burrocracia de la Generalitat.
Si Miguel de Unamuno levantara la cabeza, no dudaría en decirnos, en palabras inolvidables: “Parece que no aprendemos nunca.” Y qué declaración tan profunda es con respecto a la condición humana.
Ha sido un honor,
La burra Rubí
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Dear Mr ArthursRoger,
“Pálinka is better at 65% alcohol plus!” is not the kind of thing we really want The Peasant to aspire to. I would be grateful if you don’t encourage The Peasant too much in his drinking habits, and in any case it was meant to be Lent before the Bishop of Orihuela shut all the churches. (Which just goes to show that the Church has got entirely the wrong approach, just at the point when people need to go into the churches and get the miracles done.)
At the moment there’s no such thing as being “too hard on Morris the Donk”, as the little scoundrel knows we don’t trample flags in mud, as he had done it once before and we have put it very clearly on the list of Norty Things in the stable. If you think of Morris as Father Dougal to The Peasant’s Father Ted, you’ll get the measure of the problem.
Yours, still in the expectation that when I press send it will fail, even though the message to Liz got sent OK.
Rubí donkey
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Dear Jabbapapa,
As one of the earliest readers of The Peasant’s blogs and a fellow conspirator in driving Damian Thompson mad with a infestation of sockpuppets on the Daily Telegraph, you are not doing The Peasant any kindness – as I said to Mr ArthursRoger – by encouraging this irresponsible attitude towards drink.
We are trying to make a Spanish citizen of him and encouraging him to feel dizzy and fall under the table after just two small cañas of weak Estrella de Levante beer.
Thank you,
Rubí donkey
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This is serious news and requires urgent action by us, Jabbapapa. We need to set up immediately an alternative pilgrim association, so I suggest we go for the Popular People’s Confraternity of Saint James (Catholic-Dogmatic). This will distinguish us from two other schismatic break-away pilgrim confraternities that have been set up during the present apocalypse: the People’s Popular Confraternity of Saint James (Marxist-Jesuitical); and the Unpopular People’s Confraternity of Saint James (LGBTQ-satanist).
The real “enemies of peace” are, as we know very well, those pilgrims who sneak out of the pilgrim refuge at 5.30 a.m. and quietly disappear up the track in the half-light, having packed into their rucsack the last communal toilet rolls from the refuge’s bathroom. We really should make some effort to video-document all of this in a hard-hitting exposé. I suggest the working title: Carry on up the Camino.
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Dear Rubi,
Thank you for your long and detailed message. I do think that the idea to use donkey’s ears as a wifi repeater is brilliant, and something to remember if I ever need to use wifi in my garage.
I can understand how annoying it might get to have somebody trying to eat your home. I am in the fortunate position of having no holes at the moment, but I’ll be watching out for norty donkeys, just in case. All the more so because my fence recently blew down and it has been replaced by a rather small hedge, over which an athletic donkey could probably jump.
It was very kind of you to mention my dietary preferance for plant-based food to Matilde. I know that many people read your blogs, and probably quite a lot read those by The Peasant. Therefore I shouldn’t be too demanding, or ask for preference in these matters. There must be many demands on a busy donkey, and I shall be grateful for whatever consideration Matilde can spare.
Wishing all Donkeys, and the Peasant, the best of health,
Liz
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Liz, good to hear from you but situation is all changed and I am having a quick lunch so will not respond in detail. There will be funny donkey posts again. But now it is action time. Oddly. Not sure quite what happened there… 🙂
See Journal of the Virus Year: Chapter 6
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Gareth, you seem to have had an epiphany. I’m sure that whatever you do will be helpful and good, and I look forward to reading about it when you have time. Just stay well.
Liz
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Thanks Liz. I don’t know about any Piphnies 🙂 I just had a cup of tea this morning and found myself discussing the situation with the ex-mayor of Finestrat. I think it all began with the main political person for health in Valencia insulting the front line health workers of this region. And yesterday after the calls for her dismissal I signed the petition. Then I woke up this morning just ready for action. I’ll be putting up stuff as we go along, but the blog might get neglected a bit for the next few days. You take care too!
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Looking forward to Matilde’s Gazpacho de Yorxeta! Although if she is considering putting sausages in it, I might forget the Punch and Judy version and stick to the classico de espanol…
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SOY JON SIR. I would like to thank tou for such an informative video on how to make the brexit puta madre paella. I made it at home and it was an absolute hit. I hope to see many more videos on traditional recipes soon. I hope you read this comment on your next video, it would make my year.
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Jon,
How are you! I believe you must be the first student of mine ever to comment on this blog. I didn’t used allow any students to comment on it when I was still teaching – and in fact I discouraged it because that would not have been professional, as this blog occasionally contains rude language and general bad manners. I can now tell you that there’s place for rude language and general bad manners, but Mr Thomas never did an assembly in school on that theme, as he was generally regarded by management as a Bad Thing (being too independent of thought for the new Swedish management Gestapo), and after the previous Head Teacher Mrs Mentesh left – or to put it more honestly – was rudely shoved aside by a bullying management culture, Mr Sherrif the chemistry teacher and I just kept our heads down for two more years, and I waited for the right moment to get sacked at a time that suited me.
But you didn’t write in to hear all that, did you? You really have been taken by this Brexit puta madre paella. (Capitals please for Brexit.) If you made it at home, that’s probbly the first thing you ever did properly for homework on my instructions, but better late than never. If it was an absolute hit, you probably didn’t do it right: it should taste awful. You’ll be horrified to hear I’m becoming Spanish. I’ve done my exams successfully (well I would, wouldn’t I?) and I have to now get all my paparwork ready by August to go to the Ministry of Justice and complete the process I have begun for Spanish Nationality. I should know enough about justice by now, because I took Elians to court and won my case for unfair dismissal. They had to pay quite a few thousand Euros more than I expected. And all because they fell into the trap I set for them and took a sockpuppet to court, and lost. So there’s a good retirement plan for you, Jon. You see, in this life you have to be proactive and see which way things are going.
Are you at University of Alicante now? (Well obviously not “now”… nobody is anywhere, now.) It’s like Groundhog Day after 18 days of “estado de alarma” lock-down. All the best, lad. And keep up with the British cuisine.
From your evidently unforgettable Mr Thomas, who you are now allowed to call Gareth,
but only as long as you have learned to tuck your shirt in. 🙂
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