Paella Valenciana

Valencia is one of my favourite cities. On our last visit we went to a cooking class at Valencia Club Cocina to learn how to make paella.

We bought a 26 cm stainless steel paella pan from a supermarket in Valencia, though we don’t have the special gas range for cooking paella like in professional kitchens.

This recipe makes two servings.

Ingredients

• 250g rice (albufera or senia, don’t use bomba)
• 300g bone-in chicken
• 150g rabbit (or substitute with more chicken)
• 150g flat green beans (Ferraúra is the original variety, but any flat green beans will do)
• 50g lima beans or butter beans
• (optional) 3 artichoke hearts, cut into quarters
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons concentrated tomato puree
• 75 ml olive oil
• a few strands of saffron
• 1 tsp sweet paprika powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric (or food colouring)
• 2 sprigs of rosemary

Preparations

• If using dried lima beans, soak them overnight.
• Clean the green beans and cut into bite-sized pieces (about 3-5cm each).
• If using dried lima beans, boil them for 30 min (or 10 minutes in the pressure cooker). If using canned lima beans, just rinse them.
• Clean the chicken and rabbit, and cut into even pieces.
• Turn on heat, spread some salt on the edges of the pan. This will help avoid sticking.
• Add olive oil to the centre of the pan.
• Add chicken and rabbit pieces to the center of the pan. Stir occasionally and cook until browned.
• Move the meat pieces to the edge of the pan. If you have a small pan, just take it out and set aside.
• Add green beans, artichoke, and lima beans to the center of the pan.
• When veggies start to turn soft, move everything to the edge of the pan again.
• Turn heat as low as possible, and add minced garlic in the center along with saffron, turmeric, and paprika powder. Stir to combine
• Add pureed tomato around the spices, and mix. Be careful to not burn the saffron.
• When the tomato mixture start to turn into a fragrant brown paste, mix everything together in the pan, and scrape the brown bits on the bottom.
• Add 750 ml water (3 times of the amount of rice) to make a broth.
• Use a spoon to measure the height of the liquid in the pan. We’ll need this measurement later.
• Adjust for salt. The broth should be slightly salty.
• Simmer for 20-25 min until most of the water is evaporated.
• Add more water, so the amount of liquid in the pan reaches the height we previously measured with a spoon.
• Add rice and stir for 1 min. After this refrain from moving the rice again.
• Add rosemary. Adjust seasoning if needed.
• Cook on high heat for 10 min, followed by 5 min on medium heat.
• Finish off with medium-high heat for 1-2 min. The bottom should start to caramelise, producing “socarrat”. This can be checked by poking the bottom of the pan with a spoon.
• Dig in!