To Pea or Not to Pea?

Burning question of the day. I'm cooking paella tonight. But it won't be as big as this one, because the local cookshop only had a 33cm pan!


Food colouring, anyone?

Paella and risotto: two sides of the same Southern European coin, I'd say. My wife loves paella, because of the way her mum does it. There's always at least one big Paella Night when we visit in the summer. She uses a pan so big that she cooks it outside over an open fire rather than on her gas hob, and she includes prawns, chicken, rabbit, and pigeon. Doing! Really country living (and why can't I spell pigeon?).

I prefer a nice risotto myself, the creamier the better, and I don't really care what kind. It's labour intensive to cook either of these things, but the results are always worth it.

But what about peas? Peas are fairly standard in a paella, and you also see them frequently in risotto. My mum never did a risotto without peas, although hers weren't really what you'd call proper risotto. Me? I don't mind a pea in a paella (oo er), but I dislike them in risotto.

(A lot of you will think I thought of the headline to this before I thought of what to write about, but you would be wrong!)