Paella originated from Valencia, Spain and in this post I will share with you my Valencian paella recipe.
First of all, I want to thank Fr José Manuel Hernández Castellón, who is from Valencia, who has helped me to perfect my paella Valenciana. He wrote to me last year that my paella is as good as his mother's and I think this is an excellent commendation.
Paella is both the dish and the pan in which this rice dish is cooked. I do not have a paella pan and I use either my skillet or my wok. I do not see the point of buying lots of pots and pans.
The most important part of paella is the rice - not the chicken or vegetables and the rice grains must not stick to one another and yet it must be cooked. The rice must be tasty and it must not be soaking in a soup - this dish should be dry.
Ingredients - to feed 4 people [250 grams rice] or 5 people [300 grams rice]
1.5 kg [just over 3 lbs in weight] corn fed chicken or free range fresh chicken - cut into ten pieces depending on the size of the chicken - do not remove the skin of the chicken
450 ml fresh chicken stock - very hot [as in boiling hot] [540 ml if you are using 300 grams of rice] + more chicken stock
1 Kallo organic chicken stock cube
250 grams arroz bomba [a special paella rice from Valencia] and I use the brand La Fallera, which is recommended by Fr José
2 tsp Hungarian paprika - the best paprika in the world comes from Hungaria
a few good pinches of good quality Iranian saffron soaked in 20 ml cold water overnight - the best saffron in the world comes from Iran
1 tsp Himalayan salt
3 sprigs of rosemary [optional] washed - I use rosemary from the garden
3 tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon - cut into wedges for serving
12 langoustines, crayfish or king prawns with shells - I soak these king prawns in vodka and salt as soon as I get home from the shops and refrigerate the prawns until I need them - allow 2 king prawns per person
any green beans such as stringless beans, helda beans, sugar snap peas - allow 2 stringless beans or helda beans per person and I cut these into 2 inch lengths - alternatively, use 100 grams sugar snap peas or any other green beans such as French beans - I am using sugar snap peas today because Waitrose is selling these at discounted price
200 grams [7 oz] cooked butter beans I use butterbeans from a tin from Wairtose
200 grams [7 oz] artichokes - I use artichokes from a tin from Waitrose
There are no peppers or onions or chorizo or any sausages in the original Valencian paella! Originally, there was no seafood in Valencian paella, and the original Valencian paella had a mixture of rabbit and chicken. I cannot eat rabbit because the bone structure of rabbit reminds me of little Charlemagne. However, Fr Jose informs me that one can add other seafood if one wants to make a modern paella.
I add the stock cube, paprika, saffron liquid, salt into the fresh, boiling hot, homemade chicken stock in a separate cooking pot.
Sauté the king prawns in a frying pan after washing off the salt and alcohol, remove and set aside when the prawns turn pink and whatever you do, do not overcook the prawns!
Chickens have a strange, smelly odour, at least those from London, and I dislike this smell. I therefore add shallots and ginger to my paella to get rid of this smell. The original paella does not have these two ingredients perhaps because the chickens in Spain eat natural food. I slice and julienne these finely and sauté these in the extra virgin olive oil before I sauté the chicken pieces. One should not be able to taste or smell or see these two secret ingredients at the end of the cooking.
I then add extra virgin oil - yes extra virgin oil - into my largest cooking pan [whose bottom is 25 cm or 10 inch in diameter] and add the finely sliced shallot and finely minced ginger and then I sauté the chicken pieces. When the chicken pieces have been browned on both sides, I removed the chicken pieces and set these aside. [Note: I do not sauté the chicken breast pieces because if the breast of chicken were to be over cooked, it would not taste good.
I then pick a leaf off the Indians in making pulao and fried the rice grains. The Indians fry their rice grains when making pulao to ensure the rice grains to not stick together. I then add the hot boiling chicken stock with all above mentioned ingredients into the rice grains. I then place the chicken pieces on top of the rice and chicken stock. I then add beans on top of the rice and around the chicken.
About half way in the cooking process, I checked on the rice and I felt that it needed more liquid and I therefore spooned hot boiling chicken stock on those uncooked rice grains which were protruding from the paella. I must have added about four tablespoons additional hot boiling stock.
When the liquid is almost absorbed, I add the sprigs of rosemary and the artichokes and cover the pan [the top diameter of my cooking pan is 36 cm in diameter] and let it cook in low heat for 45 minutes. The idea is for the bottom of the rice to be browned.
After 45 minutes of slow cooking, I remove the lid of pan and rosemary, add the cooked prawns and paper kitchen towels on the top of the paella, cover the lid and let the paella stand for at least 20 minutes. I cover the pan with a blanket of towels to keep the paella warm. [The paper kitchen towels will absorb any excess liquid from the paella. In the old days, Spanish people put newspaper on top of their paella to remove any excess liquid.]
After the rice has been left to stand for 20 minutes, I add lemon wedges to the top of the paella removing paper towels. Serve the paella immediately, unless you like cold paella.
If you do not have a weighing scale, then use 1 espresso cup [90 ml] of rice for each person and for each cup of rice, add 2 cups [180 ml] of chicken stock. The maximum amount of cooked rice you can have in a pan is 1 inch thick. [1 inch = 2.5 cm] Therefore the more people you serve, the bigger the pan you need, and the bigger the hob you need. My largest hob is 10 inch in diameter and therefore the bottom of pan I can use is also 10 inch in diameter and the maximum number of people I can serve is 4 or 5 people.
If you are one of these people who do not like green beans to be overcooked, then you can cook the sugar snap peas separately, drop these into very cold water to stop the cooking process, and season these with a little salt and drizzle with extra virgin oil and set these aside. When you add the cooked prawns on the rice, you can add some of these cooked peas as well. Traditionally, the Spanish would overcook the beans and they seem to like overcooked beans.
In the old days in Valencia, poor people ate paella. They caught rabbits from their surrounding areas, killed a chicken which had been running around their garden and cooked these with rice and beans. However, other people started cooking paella, they began to add exotic ingredients and made this dish into a very expensive dish.
In London, the La Fallera arroz bomba retails for £6 a kilo, which makes it the most expensive rice I keep in stock. However, Fr Jose and Seminarian Daniel have bought for me arroz bomba from Spain last year.
Going back a couple of hundred of years, the people in Valencia cooked paella with rats - not the rats you find in the sewage in London. These were water rats which were large, herbivorous, semiaquatic rodents. Nothing disgusting about these rats! And the poor people caught these rats and cook paella with them. In the last one hundred years, they substituted these rats with rabbits and chickens.
Spanish people sauté the chicken pieces in olive oil and they then pour water into the pan and simmer this for a time and they then pour rice into the pan in the form of a cross. The problems with this way of cooking paella are that the chicken becomes insipid and the taste of the rice is also not optimal. This is why I use homemade chicken stock instead of water and let the chicken pieces sit on top of rice and while the rice is being cooked, the chicken pieces are being steamed cooked.
Arroz means rice and bomba means bomb in English. Rice was introduced into Spain by the Muslims who ruled Spain for some 800 years. So when I meet Fr Jose, I often remind him that he is half muslim! LOL! A joke!
I have a friend who finds arroz bomba very difficult to digest and she has suggested substituting this rice with others. My other Spanish friends who live in London use basmati rice. As arroz bomba is difficult to digest, Spanish people eat paella for lunch and not for dinner.
However, I will continue to use La Fallera arroz bomba to make paella.
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