I found this video on making paella incredibly helpful: https://youtu.be/L_dDUw_QuDU
I think I finished mine in the oven - for whatever weird reason I didn’t save recipe notes.
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Bookmarking. Thanks!
Will check it out. Stove top for my first tonight. Was ok . This makes more sense.
Here is an authentic Paella Valenciana Recipe from my Maternal Grandparents … ( NO SHELLFISH IN THIS RECIPE)
200 grams of dried large lima or butter vveans or broad fava beans soaked overnight
2 litres of water
155 ml. Extra virgin olive oil
750 grams of ecologically fed chicken, sliced in “chunks”
500 grams of lean pork sliced in chunks
250 grams green beans trimmed and halved
100 grams of red ripened tomatoes peeled and de-seeded ( to prevent bitterness) and finely sliced
1 teaspoon of PIMENTÓN DULCE FROM EXTREMADURA sold in every Latin Market (sweet Paprika)
salt to taste
1 sprig rosemary herb
10 threads of Saffron (also sold in every Latin Market from CARMENCILLA BRAND)
410 GRAMS OF FALLERA ABORIO RICE FROM VALENCIA (ALL LATIN MARKETS HAVE THIS )
- Put the lima beans to boil in 500 ml. water …
- Heat the EVOO in a 45cm or large pallera (paella metal pan ) or an earthenware which is how we make our´s … However, I do not eat poultry or pork so I always prepare mine with shellfish.
- To ensure even cooking, sauté the chicken until toasty light brown.
- Then add the green beans, and sauté gently and keep HEAT LOW.
- NOW ADD the tomato, the pimentón dulce, and the rest of the water.
- ADD THE SALT.
- NOW ADD THE BEANS WITH THE COOKING WATER. ADD SALT AND BRING TO A QUICK BOIL AND THEN TURN DOWN THE HEAT AND CONTINUE COOKING ON LOW SLOW FLAME FOR APPROX 45 MINUTES OR UNTIL THE RICE IS TENDER YET NUTTY. ARBORIO IS A ROUND RICE VARIETY AND IT IS NOT LIKE A LONG GRAIN. SO IT IS “AL DENTE” …
- NOW ADD THE ROSEMARY, AND THE SAFFRON. TURN UP THE HEAT AGAIN AND ADD THE RICE.
- COOK QUICKLY FOR APPROX 12 TO 15 MINUTES. TASTE THE RICE TO CHECK IF IT IS DONE. THE GRAINS SHOULD BE SOFT YET QUITE FIRM ON INTERIOR.
- REMOVE FROM THE HEAT AND ALLOW 8 TO 10 MINUTES BEFORE SERVING.
Hope this has assisted.
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4 cups of rice is for a crowd. Restaurant size paella. I’ve never done more than 1 1/3 cups rice (4 cups water) for my family of 4. And at that price point! My paellas have turned out very tasty, but I never get the soccarat. No matter what. I don’t have the right pan, but I’d hoped that even with the wrong pan, a little would brown.
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I’ve had luck with a large All-Clad stainless fry pan.
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I have one of those. I usually use a Tramontina steel shallow pot, because I’m concerned that the contents will overflow a fry pan. Can you think of an advantage of the steel fry pan over the steel shallow pot? I have an electric range and I wonder if that’s part of the problem. Things tend to stick/burn, rather than crunch up. Same issue when I’ve tried to make tadig.
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The advantage, to my mind, is more surface area for evaporation. And this particular pan heats pretty evenly. Electric could be a factor, sure.
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I’ll blame everything on the electric range 
I think the circumference of my pan and pot are roughly the same…
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I agree with @ChristinaM’s suggested advantage of more surface area. I use a large (16" diameter) cast iron pan for my paella.
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It is a bit late here, however, at the weekend, I shall type up a Paella Marinera (Shellfish only) Paella.
I posted a Paella Valenciana Recipe which has no shellfish or seafood for Sasha and Emglow a few hours ago on MAY 2021 What´s for dinner # 69 …
NOTE: I only know grams, litres etcetra measurements.
Have a lovely afternoon / evening.
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I’ll measure them. It could be I only think they’re similar. In the meanwhile, I have a cast iron, and want to love it because so many people love theirs. But in fact, I rarely use it, don’t find it is better than anything else I have for cooking, it’s a pain to clean, and lots of the food coming out of it has a metallic odor. So, I’m sad that I haven’t figured out yet why other people love theirs so much.
Many Spaniards use a PALLERA (A Metal Paella Pan) however, I use an earthenware clay vessel and so do my parents and two daughter in laws.
For us it is tops !
I know it is arbitrary, but at a certain point I had to stop buying kichenware and kitchen gadgets because I ran out of space. So now I try to make the best of the equipment I have. I don’t have any earthenware save a single shallow Le Creuset casserole. I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting it on the stove, although I’m not sure why. It seems like a bad idea?
Try preparing your SOFRITO first before you add your proteins and vegetables and rice should be last.
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Yes, that’s my method. Once the rice goes in and the liquid, it’s given a quick stir and then left alone completely.
I’m much too cheap to buy Le Creuset, but I think your sense of unease about that is right: their ceramics – or at least the range they’re punting currently in these parts – aren’t warranted hob-safe:-
“DO NOT use any Stoneware piece on the stove/hob top or any other direct heat source such as a flame or BBQ.” https://www.lecreuset.ie/en_IE/en_IE/care-and-use/cop002.html
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Jamie Oliver’s YT channel and paella recipes. Hrrrrrrrm. (OK, that’s not the recipe that got Spanish People Angry At Food, that was a later one from JO himself.)
Great vid, and of course now I’m hungry. Certainly some pretty aggressive heat going on there – including right after the cook insists we use top-quality extra-virgin oil, too! Definitely the way to get the soccarat, also a great way of getting it stuck and burnt – I think I’d be wanting to experiment with that a few times before adding the World’s Most Expensive Spice™ to it.
I think a deeper pan might also be affecting your crisping. Intuitively – and this is just a guess, so someone might well be right to Hi I’m Science And I Didn’t Say That me – that’s going to give you slower evaporation than a shallower frying pan, even if they’re the same diameter? And bad news for @Sasha’s cupboard-space – I see suggests that you don’t want a cast iron pan, you want a carbon steel one. That sounds like a very fine distinction to me, but supposedly it makes a heat conductance one. And maybe might potentially work out better on the metallic-aftertaste front?
The specialised pans I see on sale seem to indeed be mostly carbon steel, and have a very low, wide, and flared profile. Then again, some of them are also non-stick aluminium (gasp, heresy!), so pick yer take!
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