Paella Valenciana

About Paella Valenciana

Paella valenciana is the original and, to Valencians, the only true paella, a dish with protected regional pride behind it and a fixed cast of ingredients: rabbit, chicken, flat green beans, and large white garrofo butter beans over saffron bomba rice. It grew out of the rice paddies and farmland around Valencia's Albufera lagoon, where field workers cooked whatever meat and vegetables were at hand over an open fire in a wide flat pan, and it deliberately excludes the seafood most outsiders associate with the word. The taste is earthy and savory rather than briny, with the deep browned flavor of seared meat, the sweetness of tomato and beans, and rosemary and smoked pimenton threading through it. This is a Sunday-lunch dish, cooked large and eaten slowly among family.

Making it well is about building layers in the pan before the rice ever goes in: the rabbit and chicken are seared until deeply golden, the beans and garlic fried until they take color, and the grated tomato cooked down into a sofrito, so every grain of rice later cooks in a stock already loaded with flavor. Saffron bloomed in warm stock does double duty, tinting the rice gold and lending its distinctive fragrance. As with any paella the rice is spread flat and left unstirred so the bottom can form a socarrat, the toasted crust that is the mark of the dish done right. Portioned for six and finished with a sprig of rosemary, it wants nothing more than lemon and good company.