Valencian Paella Recipe

Do you love paella but you don’t know how to cook paella correctly? Don’t worry! Here you have a Valencian paella recipe step by step.

First, you will need a Paella pan, we recommend you a paella pan from 42 to 46 cm in diameter. Now, you are ready to know the ingredients. The following recipe is perfect for 4 servings, so are the ingredients we are going to show you.

• 400g/14oz of, preferably, Bomba rice. It it’s not available, you can use short-grain rice
• 2 medium size ripe tomatoes.
• 120ml/5fl oz of soft flavoured virgin olive oil.
• 500g/18oz of chicken
• 200g/7oz. of ferradura (batxoquetaor wide green/runner beans)
• 150g/6oz of clean “garrofón” (local variety of big white lima bean)*
• 1 teaspoonful of sweet paprika
• A few saffron threads, coupé quality preferably. **
• A fresh Rosemary twig
• 4 or 5 parts of water for one part of rice.

*The “garrofón” could be frozen, fresh or dried. If it is fresh, it must be left to soak the day before and boiled afterwards for 1 hour (20 minutes using pressure cooker).

**Using saffron coupé quality will give a light orange colour and exceptional aroma and taste. Also, using fresh saffron allows you to avoid artificial food colouring.

Valencian Paella Recipe – Preparation method

• Step 1: Cut the meat into 50-60g/2-2,5oz pieces. Chop the batxoqueta into bite-sized pieces, peel the “garrofón” and grate the tomatoes.
• Step 2: Pour the oil into the paella pan and check it is properly leveled. Then,heat the oil over a low heat and once it’s hot, add the chicken first. When the chicken is well browned all over move it aside to the outer part of the pan, then add the rabbit and fry it until browned too.
• Step 3: In the middle of the pan, stir-fry the batxoqueta and the roget. Stir-fry carefully, avoiding to burn it. Then, add the “garrofó” and the “tavella”. Move aside the vegetables to the outer part of the pan and pour the grated tomato in the middle, add salt and stir-fry.
• Step 4: Add a teaspoonful of paprika and stir quickly to combine it with the tomato, this way we avoid to burn it. Once all the former ingredients of our Valencian Paella Recipe are well cooked, we stir all together and continue frying for a few moments. The meat must be well browned and the vegetables and tomato well stir-fried.
• Step 5: Pour the water into the pan until it almost reaches the top of the pan. Bring the mixture to the boil, when it starts to boil add the saffron. Add the fresh rosemary twig, which must be taken out in 10 minutes to avoid an excess of flavour.
• Step 6: Cook the ingredients over a low heat for 30 to 40 minutes. In the event that before this time the water level decreases until the middle part of a soupspoon or below the rivets of the handles of the pan, add water.
• Step 7: Add the rice drawing a line along the pan’s diameter (“cavalló”). Then, spread soft and uniformly the rice with the spatula and place the meat and vegetables proportionally. Once done that, we must avoid stirring the ingredients until finishing. Return the mixture to the boil and cook the rice over a fairly high heat for 5 minutes, afterwards lower to medium heat and, for the final 4 or 5 minutes lower again to very low heat. Total boiling time of around 18-20 minutes.
• Step 8: After the 18-20 minutes, let the meal rest before serving around 5 minutes.
• Step 9: Enjoy eating your amazing paella!

We hope you liked our Valencian Paella Recipe. If you come to Spain (or you live here) and want to know how to cook paella rice with professionals, come to our Paella School and take one of our Paella courses. Our Valencian paella cooking class is waiting for you! 

Do you want some advices for cooking the perfect paella? Read the entire Valencian Paella Recipe article.