But I digress. The key topic at hand is the foil cover and oven finish see 5. While in Spain producing a photo shoot for House Beautiful at the estate of a venerable aristocratic family, the stern, no-nonsense cocinera covered her masterpiece with foil and finished it in the oven. Don't overload the dish with too much meat and fish. I like a mix of meat and fish and am sometimes guilty of pushing the limit of the protein-to-rice ratio. Then again those snails and rabbits were chosen because they were cheap and plentiful.
We Americans are used to better, and more of it, thank you. And you'll want to have enough of everything so there's a nice array in every serving. No need to pre-cook fish filets. Do keep in mind that clams and mussels always take longer to open than you expect, so factor this into your plans. Paella is very durable. You can keep it in a warm oven, covered with foil for at least an hour or two. Back in the day it was left out and eaten cool or what passed for cool in the dusty fields of Spain.
Serve paella nicely warm, not steaming hot. For the grand presentation, keep your eyes peeled for a glamorous paella pan. I start my paella in an authentic paella pan see 1.
Then I arrange the goodies in this beautiful, oven safe and heat-retaining paella presentation pan. Click here for the Spectacularly Delicious recipe for Paella shown on this page. For a more advanced version, click here for the inky and intriguing Paella Negra.
Copyright Meat, seafood, and vegetables justify their place in the pan as flavor lenders for the single most important ingredient of every paella: the rice. They are: the rice, the pan, the distribution of heat, the sofrito, and the liquid. The rice should be medium grain. Spanish rice is rounded and short; it absorbs liquid very well, and it stays relatively firm during cooking.
Those qualities make it ideal for paella, where the rice grains absorb flavor from the liquid; the rice should be dry and separate when done, not creamy like risotto. The most appreciated variety of Spanish rice is bomba, which can be ordered by mail in the U. Arborio is an acceptable substitute; long-grain rices, however, are not.
A true paella pan is wide, round, and shallow and has splayed sides. The shape of the pan, which is called either a paella or paellera pah-ay-yair-ah , helps to ensure that the rice cooks in a thin layer. For that reason, paella pans grow in diameter rather than in height.
A inch paella pan with un ditet of rice serves two to four people; an inch pan serves six to eight. A good paella pan is made of a very thin, conductive metal, usually plain or enameled steel. For example, those beautiful heavy and expensive copper or stainless-steel pans that some stores market as paella pans are actually better suited to braising than to making paella.
Paella pans can sometimes be found in Latin American or Hispanic markets. Or order them from The Spanish Table , which carries paella pans in a range of sizes, along with bomba rice and many other Spanish products. A inch or larger stainless-steel or aluminum skillet will work; otherwise, use two medium skillets which is a little trickier logistically , dividing the ingredients between them.
Avoid cast-iron skillets they retain too much heat and nonstick pans they produce bland paellas. Try to find a heat source that can accommodate the whole paella pan. The components of the sofrito vary by region. This mixture should be thick enough to hold its shape in a spoon. A flavorful liquid cooks the rice, while imbuing it with additional character. For paella with shrimp, for example, simmer the shells in salted water for a quick, flavorful stock. If you use canned stock, choose a low-salt one.
You can also use water, as many home cooks do in Spain. Almost every paella recipe calls for the liquid to be infused with saffron, which contributes color as well as a subtle background flavor to the rice. Purists will tell you that the original Valencian paella contained chicken or rabbit, green beans, snails, and fresh lima beans, and that any other combination is correctly called arroz en paella rice in a paella pan.
For some of my favorite combinations, see the Variations box below. Here are some combinations that give the rice a wonderful flavor. Seafood paella. Bury scrubbed clams or mussels in the broth while the rice cooks. Vegetable paella.
Add shelled fava beans with the rice. One of the saddest examples is the brave paella. As Catalan author Josep Pla put it, the "abuses" committed against Spain's most famous dish are "excessive — an authentic scandal". It's little things like Keith Floyd's quick-cook rice , as much as any outrageous Thai "twist" or Caribbean pineapple garnish, which offend the sensibilities of Valencians who claim the dish as their birthright.
Jenny Chandler reports in The Real Taste of Spain that shoppers in Valencia's Mercat Central could be persuaded to agree on only thing — fish and shellfish are "absolutely out of the question". Chicken and rabbit, meanwhile, are mandatory — with snails an "optional extra".
This includes, of course, the seafood version that's more familiar to British visitors, who tend to congregate on the coast where such ingredients are plentiful.
Colman Andrews makes a good point in his book Catalan Cuisine when he says: "What is understood in Valencia … is that whether it contains seafood or not, paella is above all a rice dish — and it is ultimately good rice, not good seafood or whatever that makes a paella great. Rice is a tricksy ingredient and, just like risotto, certain rules must be observed to achieve paella nirvana.
For a start, one needs a short-grain variety — not long-grain, Ainsley and others — that absorbs liquid easily and won't dry out, even when the outside is toasted to a crunch, as well as a paella pan or wide pan with a thin base so the aforementioned liquid cooks off quickly and evenly. Ideally that pan would be set over a wood fire, to give the dish a delicious whiff of smoke, but a gas ring will do.
Unlike with a risotto, stirring is absolutely forbidden — Ballymaloe take note — because you're aiming for a tender, but not creamy result. Besides, the brown, crisp layer that forms on the bottom of a well-cooked paella, the socarrat , is a highly prized delicacy. Much paella lore — that, as Elisabeth Luard reports, "to be truly worthy of the name, the cook is always a man"; that the dish must always be prepared and eaten in the open air, "preferably in the shade of an old vine or fig tree", and always at midday, rather than dinnertime — can be happily disregarded as it suits … although come to think of it, that fig tree does sound rather tempting.
The Sunday cook is expected to concentrate fully on the paella, and to pay exceptional attention to detail. Wood fires also, he says, spoil the texture of the rice. This is controversial. The dish is then left to cook over a very high heat for five minutes, until the rice has risen to the top, at which point I transfer it to the oven for a further 12 minutes. It then rests for three minutes. The texture is curious — a skin has formed on top, which seems to have kept the rice nice and moist — but it's just too silkily uniform for my taste.
The Harts' recipe is much simpler.
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