The Ultimate Paella Recipe: Step-by-Step Guide

Ingredients for 4/6 people

As it is a single course dish, I recommend making it large.

• 500 grams of rice
• 1 whole chicken
• 200 grams of diced pork meat
• 150 grams of spicy sausage
• 100 grams of salami
• 400 grams of mussels
• 200 grams of shrimps
• 200 grams of shrimp tails
• 200 grams squid cut into rings
• about ten whole langoustines
• 2 peppers
• 200 grams peas
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• 700 grams chopped peeled tomatoes
• 1 sachet of saffron
• olive oil
• chopped chilli pepper
• stock cube
• salt
• pepper

To cook paella, use a wide, low-sided iron paella pan with two semi-circular handles or a very large circular iron pan that can then go into the oven.

Preparing the Paella

Clean, wash and cut the chicken into not very large pieces, add the diced pork and cook for about twenty minutes in a little olive oil (4/5 tablespoons). After twenty minutes, remove the pieces of meat from the pan and set them aside.

In the same cooking juices, cook the spicy sausage cut into small pieces and the salami, also cut into small pieces. After about ten minutes remove the meat from the cooking juices and add it to the chicken and pork.

Add a little oil to the remaining cooking juices and cook a finely chopped onion until it turns colour together with the garlic cloves that you have crushed with a fork. The garlic cloves should be removed after browning. Now add the chopped peeled tomatoes with the chopped chilli. Season with salt and pepper and leave to cook for half an hour.

Meanwhile prepare the mussels, which should be washed and brushed thoroughly. Put them in a pan, cover and put on the heat until they are open. Half of them you will remove from the shells and add to the meat you have already cooked, the other half you will leave in the shells because they will garnish the surface of our paella.

The peppers should also be cooked lightly on the grill, just enough to remove their skin, after which you remove the seeds and cut them into strips or cubes.

Let us now move on to the fish. Put the shrimps, prawn tails and squid in a bowl with a little olive oil and cook for 5 minutes, turning often.

Now take a large saucepan and place the chicken, pork, sausage, salami, peas, chopped peppers and bay leaf in it. Add at least one litre of stock and cook everything over a low flame for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, add the fish that we have cooked before and the mussels that we have taken out of their shells and let everything cook for another 10 minutes.

In the meantime, heat half a glass of olive oil in our paella or circular iron pan, put the rice in and toast it lightly using a wooden spoon. As soon as it is lightly toasted, add the tomato mixture you prepared earlier and mix it with the rice, adding a little stock at a time. Dissolve the saffron sachet in a tablespoon of broth and add it to the rice, stirring well.

After incorporating this slowly add all the other ingredients with the cooking stock that was left over and adding a little more stock if needed until the rice is cooked. At this point, place the mussels with their shells left over on the surface of the paella and the langoustines that you have previously cooked on the grill. Place the pan in a pre-heated static oven at 180 degrees and cook for 5 minutes. Now our paella is ready to be brought to the table and enjoyed.

The appropriate wine for this dish is a dry white served cold, and this is my favourite, although some people, since there is also meat in the recipe, prefer a good full-bodied red.

Name of paella

Its name: paella comes from the frying pan in which this recipe was prepared. It is a low-sided iron pan with two opposing handles. This dish composed of rice, meat, fish, vegetables, sausages, aromas and anything else the cook sees fit to mix in, is considered by foreigners to be a kind of emblem of Spanish cuisine, while authoritative Spanish writers call paella a dish that is impossible to classify, some call it baroque, but by many Spanish chefs it is considered a curiosity for tourists.

It is true, however, that inherited from the period of Arab domination that Spain underwent, many baked rice recipes were imported, but in each using only certain elements, i.e. either only fish or only meat or only vegetables. The different regional Spanish cuisines have treasured these recipes and modified them by inserting and mixing together the various elements, making it a complete single dish with many variations.

The most common and widely cooked paella in Spain is the Valencian paella, i.e. the mixed paella, both meat and fish. However, its success, especially with foreigners, has led other regions to launch their own paellas, thus Catalan paella, Alicante paella, Navarrina paella, etc. have been born. These recipes are subject to many variations that we will analyse later.

Common rumours point to the birth of this speciality around the 15th century and it was a peasant's lunch, not a rich one as later on, but country ingredients combined with rice were used. Traditionally, paella is eaten for lunch rather than dinner and is the Sunday dish for Spaniards.

Its place of origin is thought to be the extensive marshlands of Albufera, south of Valencia, where the ideal rice for this preparation has been cultivated for centuries and many other paella ingredients can also be found. It is thought that the original recipe only included meat, chicken or rabbit and vegetables in addition to rice, so it was peasant and not marinara.

I have found various legends on the web regarding the origin of this dish and other curiosities, but I don't know how reliable they are. I propose them to you anyway because I found them very intriguing.

According to one of them, one day in an inn in southern Spain a beautiful princess stopped for refreshment. The innkeeper, enchanted by her beauty, wanted to make a dish that would be sensational, so he began to mix saffron rice with a wide variety of ingredients, from meat to fish, vegetables and herbs.

When the princess asked him the name of the dish she liked so much, the host, who could not give it a name, simply said paella, which means for her in Spanish.

Another curious anecdote of dubious origin refers to the period of occupation of Valencia by Napoleon's troops. There was a French general in town who particularly loved paella. This general promised the release of a Valencian prisoner every variation of paella he tasted. The camp cooks armed themselves with imagination and churned out many variations; it is said that they managed to free more than 150 people.

One more curiosity: the largest paella in the world. In 1992, the largest paella in the world was cooked by a restaurateur in Valencia. The paella measured twenty metres in diameter and on that occasion around 100,000 people were served.

The Spanish have even dedicated a day to paella. In fact, 27 March is International Spanish Paella Day, a day on which everyone in Spain prepares paella, coinciding with the beginning of spring and evoking warmth, sunny terraces, and convivial company gathered around this speciality, cooked and enjoyed if possible in the open air.

Let's start with the rice

It is important for the success of our paella to choose the right rice. The original recipe calls for rice called Bomba. In Spain there are three areas where this type of rice is cultivated. The Ebro delta in the province of Tarragona, the Calasparra area in Murcia and the Albufera marsh in the south of Valencia. This type of rice is suitable for all types of paella, whether meat, fish, vegetable or mixed.

It absorbs more water than other types of rice, thus retaining the flavours of the ingredients better, and another important quality, it holds its cooking time very well, even if the recommended cooking time is exceeded. The grain has a round, white appearance.

It is not very easy to find in Italy and it is also very expensive in Spain, however in Italy we have rice that is very close to this and can compensate very well. So I recommend a parboiled, arborio or carnaroli. Rices perfect for our risottos but also good for paella.

A very welcome variation would be to use black rice called Venere. This is an Italian variety of rice that originated at the end of the last century around Vercelli through a cross between an Asian variety of black rice and a variety from the Po Valley. It is certainly an exotic and unconventional choice, but it seems the ideal rice for mixed meat and fish paella, so much so that even the Spanish have discovered it and are using it.

I wanted to give it a try using Basmati rice, which is an elongated rice and I found it excellent for paella due to its fragrant and aromatic taste and whose grains remain separate and firm.

Fish paella or paella de marisco

Only fish is used in this type of paella. Mainly crustaceans and molluscs, hence the name marisco (shellfish). Mussels, squid, prawns, langoustines, but also clams, crabs or fish that the market offers, anything goes for this preparation. In this recipe, the rice is flavoured not only with saffron but also with paprika.

The basic recipe does not include vegetables other than tomato, garlic and onion, but peas and peppers can be added halfway through cooking. Instead of broth in this variation, the water that comes out of the mussels' opening in the pot is used, or the fish or shellfish fumet, which is the cooking juices of the fish and shellfish we use for our paella.

Serve the paella de marisco with lemon slices.

Vegetarian paella

Seasonal vegetables are used in this particular paella, so it can vary depending on the season in which it is prepared. So peas, cauliflower, carrots, white Spanish beans, artichokes, peppers and green beans. But champignon mushrooms or other types and other vegetables are also fine. For the cooking juices, onion, garlic, tomatoes and for the seasonings, paprika, saffron and parsley. It is a fairly quick and very tasty and healthy preparation.

Paella of Alicante

This variation uses rabbit and chicken meat, which are cut into not very large pieces and browned with a little butter together with sliced sausage. Set them aside and add the garlic cloves and chopped onion to the cooking juices. When the garlic is golden, remove it and add the tomatoes, chicken and rabbit.

Cook the rice about ten minutes in the paella pan heated with the oil, adding the meat stock a little at a time. Add the meat and cook another 5 minutes. Beat 4 eggs in a bowl with a little salt and pepper and pour over the rice while still on the heat. Place the sausage slices on top as a garnish.

Put the whole thing in the oven at 200 degrees for about ten minutes and serve hot.

The Original Valencian

It is not very easy to find, the more complete variants are preferred. But originally the Valencian paella consisted of meat, snails and vegetables and not fish as many people prefer nowadays.

So in addition to rice, chicken, rabbit, snails. White spanish beans and green beans as vegetables. For the cooking sauce, always the usual, tomato, onion and garlic. The cooking is the same, only the ingredients change. This is the oldest and most classic Spanish paella.

Sangria deserves a mention. Although it is not strictly a wine (or more simply a preparation) suitable for our paellas, it is the necessary complement to this tasty dish.

So bon appetit.