Paella – Pride of Valencia

Although extranjeros regard it as Spain’s national dish, the Spanish tend to view paella as a regional speciality, while valencianos are proud to consider it the cornerstone of their culinary culture.

Most visitors will have visited a traditional Spanish restaurant and seen waiters delivering large, round pans of steaming paella to tables. Outside Valencia, this popular dish will normally take the same form: saffron rice containing shellfish and garnished with a few prawns. Red peppers, peas and beans will have been added to provide additional colour.

While the type of paella served in areas such as the Costas del Sol and Brava is certainly tasty, it represents only one example of this amazingly versatile dish. Order paella in an authentic Valencian restaurant and you are likely to be served the traditional saffron rice and vegetable base with snails, rabbit and chicken, rather than seafood. Other popular ingredients include pork loin or, for the seafood version, cuttle fish, and calamari (squid or octopus). Outside Valencia even occasionally chorizo (a spicy sausage similar to salami) is used, though a Valenciano would frown at this. Likewise the ‘paella mixta’, which is offered in some parts of Spain, but regarded as the height of bad taste in Valencia, where meat and fish are never mixed.

Paella is a Valencian word, a derivative of patella (pan). Valencianos use paella to describe all pans, not just the shallow pan used specifically for cooking paella, although the Spanish prefer to refer to it as a paellera. These are made from polished steel and include two handles, one each side of the pan.

All paellas are made in much the same way, the pan being coated with olive oil to sautée the ingredients before the cooking liquid, saffron and rice is added. An expert paella maker will be able to time the cooking process to the last second, so that the socarrat (the crispy, caramelized delicacy at the bottom of the paella pan) forms properly before serving.

Although the beautiful deep yellow created by the addition of saffron, paella aficionados have the option of requesting their dish to be prepared using arroz negro (black rice) which is cooked with squid ink.

However, old habits die hard: most visitors will probably continue to order their paella in its seafood guise, while valencianos shrug their shoulders, convinced that they don’t know what they’re missing.

New post on at Saturday, 18 July, 2009, 8:09 am and is archived in Food and drink, Lifestyle. Subscribe to answers with RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.