How to do Great Paella

Paella is actually the name of the pan in which the classic rice dish is served. But should that rice by dry or sticky when served? I've been to restaurants where, frankly, if you threw the paella at the wall, it would still be stuck there a week later. 

So what is the correct texture of paella?  The paella served in Valencia is certainly lighter and drier than i have tasted further south in Spain. It is also less reliant on salt. I can take you by the hand to one popular restaurant close to me where should you have the paella, you will be begging for water to be fed to you intravenously for the following 24 hours. Some restaurants use way too much salt to hide their lack of cooking skills. Paella should not be saltier than the mediterranean sea.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to the author, and former chef, Luis Benavides Barajas. He says: "If i had my way salt would be removed from the kitchens of many Spanish restaurants. It is used too often and in too great a quantity. I have had paella so salty you could float in it. It's crazy.

In Valencia they know the difference between good paella, where the rice is dry and cooked just long enough, and a wet risotto - the type of which is common in Italy. I'm afraid that in other parts of Spain you can be served a paella pan full of what i call gloopy rice that is only fit to stick together legs on a broken piece of furniture. It amazes me how many people don't know how to cook rice. It's simple."

Gerry Dawes is a very experienced writer on Spanish food and travels the country widely. On his informative blog, he writes: "The variety of rice dishes from the Valencia-Alicante region is astounding; some are caldoso (soupy); some are meloso ("wet," or risotto-like), others are dry; some are cooked over fires of grape vine cuttings, firewood, charcoal (a round barbeque grill works great) or special gas rings hooked up to portable propane tanks, others are done stove-top or in the oven (al horno) and many dishes such as the delicious arròses caldosos (soupy rices) are done in crockery casseroles. "Most of the best arroses are made with the Levante area's medium- to short-grain rice: Senía, preferred by many top chefs, Bahía or the famous Bomba and Calasparra rices (from neighbouring Murcia). When properly prepared the grains are plump and separate, loosely joined, but not pasted together by their own starches.

An essential and prized element of most arroses en paella is socarrat, the crust, which when properly done is not burned or scorched, but caramelized on the bottom of the pan and when the dish is served, scraped and broken up to mix in with the rice and eaten as a crunchy counterpoint to the al diente rice grains."

Author of "Classic Spanish Cooking", Elisabeth Luard, lived in Andalucia for many years. But she appreciates that nodoby knows how to cook a paella better than a woman living in the Valencia region. She says: "There are a prodigious number of variations on the basic theme: any Valencian housewife worth her paella pan can probably come up with 50 different combinations of vegetables, game, meat fish and poultry for flavouring the best saffron rice."

For my part, i have used Calasparra rice from Murcia and the rice grown in the distinctive Ebro delta area of Spain. But it's the quality of Bomba rice from the La Albufera natural park region of Valencia that is widely reputed to provide the best paella. Cooking rice may be a simple task for experienced restaurant owners, but there is no doubt that it's not a skill that comes easily to a beginner. Trial and error is inevitable when trying to present a perfect paella. 

Using Bomba rice will make life easier for you but do not despair if your early efforts end in the bin. You are in good company. Cooking paella seems to be a mystery to many a younger working chef. Is there a perfect time to eat paella? Elisabeth Luard says: "Rice dishes are traditionally only served at midday. Valencians, the rice experts of Spain, maintain that anyone eating paella in the evening is either a tourist, or a native being polite to a tourist."

As Elisabeth says in her book, "it's the implement that defines the dish." And when it comes to the implements required for cooking paella, you can find many of them available via The Tapas Lunch Company where we have a great range of paella pans and accessories covering all your needs - from dinner parties to event catering.