Paella Tips - Basic Principles

Basic Principles

• Remember it is a rice dish !!

The principle around making a good paella is very simple. It is to get all the flavours from the stock and accompanying ingredients into the rice. I read once that you know when you have made a good paella when your guests eat all the rice and leave the other bits on the plate - and it is true!!

 Many paellas are just "over the top" when it comes to all the trimmings, they add very little to your paella itself and often detract from the flavour of the rice.

• Use the right rice

As said before, paella is a rice dish so you want to make sure your primary ingredient "rice" is correct. Paellas use a short grain rice. It is typically the Bahia variety grown in river deltas of South-eastern Spain with the best rice coming from Valencia (around the Albufera Nature Reserve) and Calasparra in Murcia.

For that special paella, there is a variety of paella rice called "Bomba" - meaning  bomb !!. This is a slow growing rice that has the amazing property of absorbing 3 times its own volume when cooked without falling apart (normal rice is twice its own volume). As paella is primarily the flavours of the stock being absorbed into the rice - this can make for a very special dish. Although it's nearly double the price of normal paella rice, it's worth it !.

• Use the correct size paella pan

The reason there are so many different sizes of paella pan is because it is important not to create a paella that is too deep. Your final paella needs to be a "dry" rice and having the dish too full will not allow the rice to dry out once cooked.

As a basic rule of thumb a paella should not be deeper than the rivets for the handles on the paella pans. We have put together an approximate pan serving guide, but remember people will want to come back for seconds !!

• Use the appropriate heat source

Traditionally, paellas are cooked over an open fire and that is still a very good way to cook if you have the facilities. In fact the very largest paella pans that you may have seen in Spanish fiestas can only be cooked over an oven fire !.

Our range of outdoor paella gas burners provides a more convenient way of cooking these large pans outdoors. They are specially designed to provide heat all over the bottom surface of the pan.

Cooking on a charcoal BBQ is possible if you can either get the pan close to the coals or use a mixture of wood and charcoal. Gas BBQ's don't work that well as you cannot get enough heat to the pan.

Smaller pans may be used indoors on a normal domestic gas hob or range cooker.  Using a single gas burner, you can use up to about a 34cm pan. Using a central "wok" burner you can use up to about a 38cm pan. Larger paella pans up to about 50cm can be cooked on indoors  if you use all the gas burners and keep moving the pan - Although its easier on an outdoor paella gas burner.

Electric hobs are not well suited for traditional paella pans as they are slightly dished in profile. This causes them just to make contact in the centre of the pan giving a "hot spot". For electric you need to use one of our sandwich base paella pans that have machined flat bases.