You may be wondering why I haven’t titled this blog post ‘Paella’. The answer is simple: saffron and rice do not (necessarily) a paella make! My favourite saffron rice dish so far on a visit to Tenerife used a rice that wasn’t of the required round grain. It was also much more soup-like, and hadn’t been cooked in a paella pan. All that said, it was divine!

Consumed alongside a steaming vat of seafood in white wine and garlic, this particular rice dish was packed full of prawns, squid and peppers. Eaten at the seafront Restaurante Las Aguas, the dish was rich with saffron and its enjoyability was no doubt improved further by the sound of the waves.

I’ve eaten two other dishes so far this trip which were of the more recognised paella variety, one an extremely tasty seafood paella (though it could have skipped the limpets for my taste!) and the other an adequate but unremarkable chicken one. The latter was given more interest by the inclusion of butter beans and runner beans, which gave a different texture and flavour dimension.

I adore the availability of such delicious and cheap rice dishes, the only problem is finding enough stomach space to eat other things too! More to follow on my non-rice Canarian food experiences in Tenerife in a future post.