Millie Bobby Brown Shares Her Favorite Paella Recipe—and Details About Her Wedding to Jake Bongiovi

I can t be a Bon Jovi without good Italian food.

[gentle elegant music]

Hi, everyone, it s Millie Bobby Brown

and I am with Vogue today

to serve not only a look, but actually a meal.

I m wearing a Dolce Archive.

Who? Me.

Yeah, the ingredients for my paella are one pepper,

one onion, some garlic, chorizo, cubed chicken,

canned tomatoes, Arborio rice, saffron, and chicken stock.

And then some spices, paprika, chili flakes,

depending on how spicy you like it.

First, I thank the culinary gods.

I say, Millie, you are gonna do

a great job today no matter what,

don t pressure on yourself.

I m gonna start off by dicing [giggles] some garlic.

My dad s a really good cook.

My mom doesn t really cook and my mom is here.

She s probably gonna be saying,

I make a really good spaghetti bolognese.

But Mom, that s the only thing that you cook.

Dad has various different ingredients

and he can just whip something up that makes total sense,

but you d never think you d put together.

So I learned probably from my dad.

We re gonna take this ring off.

It s all getting really serious.

Chop, chop, chop away. Get it really small.

I hate the way when you chop garlic and you smell your...

Ooh, like I can t stand it.

So usually this is Jake s job. That feels about right.

My least favorite part of cooking.

Sometimes I cry, sometimes just I m really hardcore.

Let s see what happens today.

But let s really hope not

cause I ve got a really strong eye look going on

and I know people on here are gonna say,

What are you doing cutting an onion like that?

And I m gonna say, I don t know what I m doing,

so I m just gonna go in chop away.

Guys, if you re ever wanting something

to get just a tiny bit smaller

and you re cooking, do my trick.

Oh, God. Do my trick.

You just...

[knife chops]

It s such a great trick.

In my house, I put a big bowl on the table

and I put all the leftovers and feed it to my chickens.

They love it.

I have five hens. They are great.

They re all named off to the Spice Girls,

which I heard Chappell Roan has chickens that are named

after the Spice Girls,

which for me just feels like a segue

into a really close friendship.

My chickens, I had from babies, I raised them.

I was actually told they were gonna die

and then all of them survived.

So it s the power of love in Chappell Roan, I guess.

Chappell, if you re watching this,

know that our chickens could get along.

Posh would like to meet Posh 2.0.

Okay, I m in a pretty good place

where the onion is really diced.

My pepper, right down. Cut the head off.

Take the inside. This is the part my chickens love the most.

Always save that part.

I was full when I left Spain,

so it s always been a part of my life.

My first memory ever,

I had like a toy car that I would drive.

It was like a very small, you know, baby toy car.

We lived on a hill and in Spain, my dad can confirm

or deny this, but I lost control

and I was going down the hill and my dad was chasing

after me and like, I think that was my first memory.

I was like a really clumsy kid.

So I would fall a lot, chip my teeth, slip my head open.

You know, it s all added to the creativity of

who I am today though,

It s all made me smarter.

At least that s what my mom tells me.

So I m like actually getting shit done.

Whereas usually I am on the phone

with my girlfriends dying laughing at some TikTok.

Are we done with that? [sighs] Oh, my God, the chorizo.

Okay, I hate, hate, hate cooking meat.

Like it s my least favorite part of any cooking experience.

Again, leave that to my husband.

But here we are today,

Millie has to overcome her fears.

FYI, I don t usually do this,

so I m gonna cut that like that

and then I m just gonna open it like that.

Ugh, that feels right to me.

Now it s just looking weird. Let s chop it up.

[knife chops]

Actually the smell is so delicious.

I do slice it cause I don t like...

My dad also is the same.

We don t like it to be too big

and I usually just pile them on top just

to make it go faster.

So we re now at a place where we have our diced veggies.

We have that, that thing.

And we re going to use the stove now. Let s do it.

Let s make magic happen. Voila.

Now we have my stove.

So what I like to do is I like to start off

by turning it on, medium heat, put some oil in.

I will put my onions in, put my garlic in,

and I m gonna throw my saffron in the chicken stock

to bloom it while I m cooking.

Now I m going to add some salt.

For me, I loved baking in COVID

and until I smell like it s walking,

then I kind of, that incentivizes me to keep going.

It starts to smell bad. That s when we put a roadblock.

I m very much just like go with the flow, just keep tasting

as I go along and see if it needs more of anything.

I m gonna let this caramelized.

Anytime anyone wants to kind of go out for dinner,

I m always like, Come over, and it feels more intimate.

And it actually, I feel like my love for food is like a way

of saying like, Thank you for coming over.

So now I m just gonna throw in the red pepper.

I m gonna start with my least favorite part,

which is cooking the meat.

I have a very bad irrational fear

around raw chicken and some might say,

Millie, go be a vegetarian.

And I m gonna say to that, Yeah, I was a vegetarian

for a really long time, but I found out my body needs meat.

Everybody s different.

And that s what was happening with me.

We have olive oil, we have the chicken.

[chicken sizzling]

Once it s cooked, I usually leave it in the bowl.

I don t eat it. That s Jake always

when we re like cleaning up after he goes,

You haven t even touched it.

So why do we put it in there?

And I m like, I know, I do this every time.

But it s for the enjoyment of my other guests.

I want everybody else to enjoy the chicken,

I just seemingly can t.

We re gonna add some salt and pepper.

This is my paprika.

I m gonna put a little bit in now to give some

of the veggies some flavor.

I mean, I was on Hell s Kitchen.

Yeah, that s right. I was the idiot sandwich.

No, I was a guest on there when I was like nine.

I love Gordon. I love his whole family.

Oh, but Stanley Tucci s a good chef,

but I ve never tried his food.

So invite me over, Stanley.

All right, something s happening.

It s definitely turning a different color.

Next, we re going to add in that chorizo.

So here we go.

[chorizo sizzling]

I m just gonna put in like not all of it.

And I really like the chorizo really crispy.

So this is the part where I take the most time

and make sure that it s like really crispy and delicious.

Next, I m gonna put in [giggles] my canned tomatoes.

I m just gonna pop this in.

And this actually helps soften the vegetables.

I just like to kind of mix this around, get it moving. Yum.

Just wait, have faith in me. It s looking good.

It looks where it needs to be for me.

If you put it in the rice fast,

it picks up all the flavors of the oils.

[eye tinkles]

Woo-hoo.

I m just gonna mix this together

and I m gonna add in chicken stock.

So I again like to do this kind of the same thing

with the paprika but do it intermittently

because the rice really soaks up fast.

And then you have to keep trying

and make sure the rice is actually cooking

and then you add more.

I kind of play it by ear at this point.

And you let the rice do the talking.

Now I m gonna put in the peas,

I m gonna put in the blooming saffron

and I m gonna put in the rest of my paprika.

Chef s kiss.

Lid is gonna go on top of this while this is cooking.

And I m going to keep looking at this in disappointment.

The wedding food process, I didn t do a tasting,

I didn t do anything.

Our caterer was Galateo, the most like renowned,

beautiful catering company in, honestly Europe.

So I was like, You got this.

And to this day, guests at my wedding say,

There was a pasta dish that was like so amazing.

What I really wanted the takeaway to be was

that the food was the best food

they ve ever had at a wedding.

And I am taking, taking that very proudly.

I very much am not a trad wife, but I do love cooking

and I love married life.

I love cooking with my husband. Jake also loves the farm.

He also loves cooking like we re a trad couple,

but like a trendy trendy trad couple.

So now I m going to pop the chicken in to the paella.

Probably needs another like, honestly 15 minutes,

but we ll check like intermittently.

So what I would usually do at home is I would then go

and let the dogs out, put my life jacket

on my English bulldog cause she really likes the pool,

but she doesn t realize that she can t swim.

All right, I m gonna make you a drink. Let s do it.

So now I m gonna show you my favorite drink,

which is a Shirley Temple.

I grew up in the industry always going to like fancy dinners

and meeting fancy people.

And to feel fancy myself, I would order a Shirley Temple.

And now growing up and being 21,

my preference is always gonna be a Shirley Temple.

I need a cold drink.

Let s find like a really nice one to sit on top of that.

Yeah, that s what we wanna see.

Okay, then I m gonna do a splash.

I like to do a squeeze of lime

and then I like to fill it all the way up.

Okay, I like to pop that in there.

One for me, one for the drink,

and then I m gonna use the back

of a spoon just to get that grenadine.

Doesn t that look so good? And guess what this doesn t do.

Leave you questioning everything you did the night before.

Always choose Shirley. This is like the best drink ever.

So I m very happy with this. Let s check the paella.

[food sizzling]

Oh my gosh, it looks amazing.

I m gonna do a little taste test

with the same Shirley Temple spoon, just gonna...

My dad would like it, however, Jake wouldn t.

So I m gonna pour some more of this on

because the rice is still too hard.

And then I m just going to bring all

of the sides into the middle.

This might be my segue into my cooking career.

We don t know, like I could be the next Stanley Tucci.

We re gonna let that do its thing again.

And it s also gonna get crispy on the bottom,

which is my favorite part of any paella.

Tas tas.

[bell dings] Checking.

That s ready. All right, this is ready to be served.

So I m gonna tidy up so we can get taste testing.

All right, we re back. I clearly had way too much fun.

I m gonna make another.

This time, I m gonna put two cherries in.

The rest is Sprite.

The reveal. Here we go.

This is our paella. I m gonna start in the middle.

Why not?

Now I m going to put a little bit of parsley.

Not one flake went on there.

A little lemon and voila, that is my paella.

Wow. I m getting hints of saffron.

I m getting hints of tomato. This is delicious.

Good job me.

It s all working. It s all giving.

It s all serving.

My kitchen at home does not look like this.

And it usually has around 10 dogs running around me,

eating everything that falls on the ground.

It s just been a really peaceful, enjoyable experience.

I love limes. You know, and Dakota s like, I love limes.

I would like to take this home in memory

of that amazing video.

Thanks so much for watching. Bye.

I have a nephew and I perform popular to him.

He fully giggles and laughs

at me playing Elphaba and Glinda for him.

He loves the power of Elphaba.

Like he can really...

He feels it, but Glinda makes him laugh.

[upbeat bright music]