Spanish recipes: paella

A paella from our favourite restaurant - the 7 Puertas

How to make paella
Of traditional Spanish recipes, paella is clearly the best known. As in other countries, there's a danger that Spain's regional dishes could be lost to convenience food, but a straw poll round the office suggests that there are still plenty of Spanish people that still know how to make paella.

We pinned down two, Monica Ezquerro and Meritxell Criado, and got them to tell us the secrets of making a good paella, and Susana Ortiz also chipped in with some good advice…

Note that you need a very large flat paella pan in order to make paella – it's not something that you can really do in a frying pan, a paella pan being much wider so that the rice is distributed more thinly. You invited 16 people? You've got a really huge one, right?

Ingredients
• mussels (mejillones), 2 or 3 per person
• prawns (gambas), 2 or 3 per person
• cuttlefish (sepia)
• clams (almejas)
• squid (calamar)
• rabbit or chicken (you want a medium sized piece per person)
• red and green pepper
• artichokes
• peas
• rice
• tomatoes
• olive oil
• onion
• garlic
• saffron or artificial colouring

Preparation
•Brown two cloves of garlic in your paella pan, using olive oil (go on, don't be so squeamish!)
•Remove the garlic when it's done and cook your meat in the same oil
•When that is lightly cooked – don't over do it – remove it and cook the vegetables, carefully washed and chopped, again in the same oil
•Separately, cook all the fish, boiling it, all together, approx. 10 mins, in a large saucepan, without forgetting to add the salt; strain it when it is done, but keep the water (strain that too) as you are going to use it to cook the rice in
•When the vegetables are done, remove them and add grated tomato to the pan, with chopped garlic and (optionally) finely chopped onion
•Allow this mixture (the "sofrito") to cook gently over a low heat for 15-20 mins
•Now put all the ingredients – vegetables, meat and fish – back in the pan, together with your fry, and add the rice
•The rice should be 1 cup per person, with 2 cups of water for each one of rice. In Spain, the cup we use is typically a small ubiquitous wine glass, about the size of a small coffee cup
•The water should be boiling and, carefully strained, should be that used for preparing the fish (it is this, and using olive oil) that gives your paella its authentic taste
•Season with salt, and add the saffron (or colouring)
•Keep a small pan of water boiling so that you can add a little more if necessary (under no circumstances add water that is not boiling)
•The rice needs to cook slowly, over a low heat, for approximately 20 mins – until it is exactly right… Get it exactly right, and you've just created the perfect paella.

Tips and tricks
The secret of making a great paella is to use a quality olive oil, says Monica Ezquerro. Get down to the delicatessens if you're not living in Spain. If you are, don't be stingy when you get to the super and, whatever you do, don't let your Mum convince you that she'd rather do it with some substitute for Spanish olive oil.

Susana Gómez reckons that "te lo juegas" with the "sofrito", that your tomato, garlic and onion base is the making or breaking of a good paella: it has to be done "con mimo y cariño" – with a bit of tender loving care – over a low heat.

A paella pan has two handles which you can manoeuvre it with. Don't keep sticking your spoon in the rice, or stir it in anyway during cooking. Instead, shake the pan gently using the two handles in order to distribute the water evenly.

Get the rice cooked to perfection – it's a question of trying it and getting it just right, neither hard nor overdone, and it should be neither soggy nor oily. When it is just about – but not quite – done, turn off the heat, cover the pan with a damp kitchen cloth and leave to stand for five minutes.

Difficulty
Much easier than seems, though practice makes perfect. Getting the rice just right is the most difficult thing, says Meritxell.

Preparation time
Around an hour

Just recommend me a good restaurant, would you?
Well, if you are here in Barcelona, just about any greasy-spoon joint will serve you one on a Thursday. If you want to go up market, the 7 Puertas (Isabel II, 14) is famous for its paella and is somewhere we can whole-heartedly recommend.

Alternatively, head down to the seafront in Barceloneta, where you will find any number of places for a decent paella.

Varieties of paella
•A traditional "paella valenciana" is "mixto", ie. mixed, with fish, meat (rabbit or chicken and costilla de ternera) plus your vegetables – red and green peppers, habones or peas, and artichokes.

•Alternatives include meat or fish only but it's really a matter or taste – ask practically any Spaniard and their version of what a genuine paella is coincides down to the last pea with how their Mum makes it:

•Vegetarian

To accompany paella
For starters, a simple green salad – lettuce, tomato, onion, black olives… And be liberal with the olive oil when you are dressing it.

For dessert, "crema catalana" ... something we'll come back to another day!

And to wash it all down? A good red wine. "Sangre de Toro", Meritxell suggests – "Bull's Blood". ¡Olé!

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All of the recipes in this section come from projects done in class with students on our Spanish courses... Learn details.