Sunday: "Spanish" rice

On Saturday we picked up a piece of nice Spanish ham. Last night I used the first half of it in a batch of "Spanish" rice.

I started by cooking a diced onion, 2 chopped garlic cloves, and about 150g diced ham in olive oil until the onion was translucent. To this I added a cup of rice and cooked it, stirring, until it was nice and toasty. I added 2 cups of chicken stock, a good splash of red wine (~1/2 cup), a Tbs or so of tomato paste, a tsp each of sweet and hot paprika, about a tsp of chopped orange zest, and maybe 1/2tsp of cumin. Some saffron would have been nice too, but we were mysteriously out. I stirred the rice frequently as it simmered (uncovered) until the liquid was mostly absorbed, then covered the pot and let it sit 10 minutes to finish cooking.

We ate this very nice food with a green salad.