Vaello 500 Garden Paella Set

Polished Steel & Enamelled Steel Paella Pan Serving & Dimension Information

Paella Pans are tradionally described by the size of their top diameter. The base is somewhat smaller due to the sloping sides of a traditional paella pan. When cooking paella it is important to choose the right size pan to keep the paella thin. The most common mistake in cooking paella is to overfill the pan.

We have included some information for choosing the size of paella pan:

• Main vs Tapas Portions
  

  Each pan is marked by the manufacturer for the number of "Raciones" it will serve. This is best described as a "tapas" size portion. It is slightly strange as in Spain you would never see a paella pan being used to serve these numbers of portions. For example a 50cm pan is described as serving 14 portions, but in practice it will be used for about 7 people (perhaps even less). However the sizing is used by all the pan manufacturers in Spain, so it isn't going to change. Therefor we have added a column for Main course size servings, that give a better impression of the pan capacity.

• Minimum amounts for each size pan
  

  It is always better to use have less in the pan than the maximum number of main course portions. A thin paella (up to a depth of about 1cm) will cook and taste better than an overfilled pan. As a general rule of thumb, if you take half (or a little more) the value of tapas portions, that would be approximately the minimum amount of main course portions the pan can be used for. eg for a 50cm Pan max main course portions is about 8, min would be 14/2 so 7 or or 6

• Cooking on a gas hob
  

  It is important to try and get an even cooking heat as possible. This becomes very neccessary in the later stages of cooking paella when the rice is cooking. The flame does not need to cover the whole base of the pan, but conversely you dont want a small concentrated heat in the centre. In practice a gas hob can cook up to about a 36cm (maybe a 38cm) pan depending on the size of the gas burners. It is possible to use larger pans on agas hob if they can span multiple gas burners. However this will mean moving the pan (not stirring the paella !) around while the rice is cooking.

  
  
  

  Remember normal paella pans are for gas or open fire only. If you are cooking on electric or AGA's then you will need one of our flat-bottomed paella pans