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Paella valenciana. The original recipe

Paella valenciana is a celebration of rice with humble and rural origins. Learn how to prepare the most traditional paella valenciana and more paella recipes. Valencians masterfully elevated common Mediterranean foods to a distinctively delicious rice dish, paella,which has become famous all over the world.

Below you will find the original recipe from l'Horta, which is considered the mother of all paellas. I am giving you the exact original ingredients and method of preparation of the most traditional paella valenciana, as homage to this jewel of Valencian culinary culture.

Ingredients for paella valenciana that serves six

2 3/4 leveled cups (14 ounces) bomba rice or medium-grain white rice
5 1/2 cups boiling water
3/4 cup or 12 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 pounds chicken - cut into small pieces
1 1/4 pounds rabbit - cut into small pieces
1 big ripe tomato - scalded, peeled, and grated
3/4 pound green flat beans - stem ends cut off, and cut into 1.5 inch pieces
1/2 pound tavella beans - shelled. Leave them out if you don't find this local variety from Valencia.
1/2 pound garrofó beans - similar to flat whitebutter beans. Leave them out if you can't get this local variety.
1 pinch saffron
1 teaspoon sweet paprika. You can leave it out if you don't have it.
Salt

Paella valenciana preparation instructions

Heat the olive oil in a paella pan and brown the chicken and rabbit pieces until they become golden.

Add the green beans, the garrofó and the tavella beans, and stir all ingredients. Sofry or caramelize-fry for 5 minutes.

Add the grated tomato and cook at least 5 minutes.

Add the bomba rice and stir briefly. Distribute the rice uniformly over the paella pan bottom. At this point the wood fire should be at its strongest or the heat source high.

Immediately add the sweet paprika and the saffron. Add the boiling water and salt to taste. From now on, you shouldn't stir the paella any more.Cook the paella valenciana for 17 minutes. The first 10 minutes the wood fire should be strong or the heat source high. From this point let the fire die down, or turn the heat to medium if you are cooking indoors.

Remove the paella pan from the wood fire or heat. Cover it with a newspaper, and let it rest for 5 minutes. You can now enjoy your paella valenciana with your guests.

More tasty paella recipes

Mixed paella recipe, another delicious version of paella valenciana with some fish.

Notes on paella valenciana

When paella was created it was cooked outdoors using the garden vegetables at hand that grew in the Valencia region called l'Horta, literally vegetable garden in Catalan: Green beans, tomatoes, perhaps artichokes in winter, which give paella valenciana a blackish tint, and yard animals like chicken or rabbit.

The classic paella valenciana is cooked outdoors over a wood fire made of orange or vine shoots, but if you are not able to cook it outdoors, go ahead and prepare paella recipes indoors. However, unless you are an expert home cook, at the beginning don't try to cook paella on your stovetop for more than four or six people.

One of the secrets for cooking good paella is uniform heat over the whole paella pan bottom. If you are cooking paella in your kitchen, use two or more fires on your stovetop as needed. The trick is to distribute the heat as uniformly as possible over all the bottom of the paella pan.

An excellent solution for cooking paella valenciana indoors is a propane burner, which is used by many urban families in Valencia and the Mediterranean region.

Finally, the one cooking utensil that is absolutely essential for cooking paella valenciana is a paella pan. Without this Mediterranean cooking utensil, it is much more difficult to cook paella properly. Traditional paella pans are inexpensive and you can buy them online in this specialty store.