How To Make a Traditional Valencian Spanish Paella

in #food7 years ago (edited)

This Saturday I cooked a traditional Valencian Paella, and I thought I would share it with Steemit. This paella, is called a “Paella Marinera”, a dish cooked using seafood, fish, shellfish and vegetables. I cooked it over fire because it makes a huge difference, to the taste and flavour.

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I put a lot of effort into this post, so I hope everyone likes it. I took pictures of every step, in case anyone wants to have a go at making one themselves....

First of all, a picture of the ingredients:

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What you'll need:-
-4 Big tomatoes, grated. (Or tinned chopped tomatoes, but I prefer freshly grated)
-Vegetable/Fish stock
-Seafood mix: Scallops, peeled prawns and squid rings. (mussels can be added as well)
-300gr chopped swordfish, added to seafood mix
-2 garlic cloves unpeeled
-Rice, special for paella
-Butter Beans
-250g Mange Tout
-1 teaspoon of “Pimenton de la Vera” (This is smoked paprika from “La Vera, Spain”)
-1 teaspoon of “El paellero” colouring and seasoning powder
-Salt
-Olive oil

So, paella is the name of the pan, and it has a flat base, and is designed to cook over a fire or bbq.

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Don’t worry if you don’t have the type of pan I mentioned above, other types of pans can be used and this allows you to also cook the paella on a cooker. One of the characteristics of the paella is the smoky flavour obtained by the process of cooking it using fire, so the flavour may vary if you cook it using a cooker.

The first thing is to prepare the fire. The temperature needs to be constant, so try to maintain the fire throughout cooking, by adding more wood.

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When the flames die down, the fire is ready. Put the pan on the bbq rack, add water, and make sure the pan is clean. You should also do this if your pan is new. Now, drain the water, and add the pan back to the fire.

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Now add approximately 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Allow the oil to heat up. Create a small cut on the garlic cloves, without breaking them. Now add garlic to the pan, and stir the garlic around, with the hot oil.

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After a few minutes, add the seafood mix and swordfish, and stir, so fish doesn't stick to the pan. Be careful with squid rings, because they can get very rubbery if overcooked. Also, stir the oil and seafood around the pan, as it will add flavour to the rice.

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When the seafood is half cooked, add the butter beans and mange tout. At this point, add a tablespoon of olive oil. Now mix with the seafood and continue stirring, so ingredients don't get stuck to the pan.

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Once the butter beans start looking cooked, it is time to add the grated tomato, and the last tablespoon of olive oil. Now, mix well with the ingredients and stir.

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Before adding the vegetable or fish stock, add a teaspoon of “Pimenton de la Vera” (smoked sweet paprika), and mix it well with the ingredients on the pan. Its name due to the region were it is grown: La Vera, Extremadura (Spain).

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Next, add hot water to your stock, and add to the pan. The measurement for the stock is not stated because, the liquid should go up to the handle screws inside the pan. Move stock around using a wooden spoon and leave it to boil.

Now, add half a teaspoon of “El Paellero”, which is a seasoning and colouring especial for paella.

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Once the stock is boiling we add the rice. The traditional way to measure the rice is by drawing a cross over the pan. Gently stir. After the rice is added, don’t stir anymore and leave the rice to cook. The rice will take approximately 25 minutes to cook. So keep adding wood to fire, but not too much

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After 10-15 minutes, take the garlic out.

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After the 20 minutes, the paella should be cooked, so cover the pan with newspaper and leave it to sit for 5-8 minutes.

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Now, the paella is ready to eat.

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I hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe you feel inclined to have a go yourself. If you have any questions then feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Also, please UPVOTE, and ReSteem.

Thanks for reading! :)

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Well that looks absolutely incredible. Thanks for showing us such a detailed way to make Valencian Spanish Paella.

You are more than welcome, i am hoping to continue posting more traditional Spanish dishes.
Follow me if you are interested =)
I am following you ^^

that just looks BLOODY AMAZING!!! I'm soo hungry now!

It looks great , I tried making paella with the seasonal fish available in India . So my question to you is, is there any particular fish for making authentic paella ?

Hi, thank you for your reply, first of all.
It usually includes mussels, squid rings, prawns (peeled or unpeeled), scallops.
There is also traditional and it looks like paella as it is cooked on the same type of pan, and it is what we call "Arroz con bogavante" (rice with lobster), also delicious but different in its preparation.

OK chef thank you :D I will definately try it .

Hehe, you are welcome. I hope you like it ^^

Yes chef , I even followed you so that I can get some more amazing recipes and can get more ideas from you and try it in my kitchen.

Chef I recently posted a recipe of cheese steak. If you can go through and give me review about my experiment . It would be great full for me .

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It looks like... delicious. Paella has a lot of possibilities.

Thank you.

looks yummy..... great work @versonika

Thanks for visiting. :)

Gefällt mir. Du hast einen neuen Follower :-)

Thank you. :)

That looks great, thanks for sharing @versonika

You are welcome ^^

Wow! That looks great but the special seasonings and paella rice are not available in Ocala FL.

I have had a look online and Walmart shows some results on Calasparra Rice, which is great for the dish, and saffron threads which will give lovely flavour to the paella.

Nice, i like the wood stove that you used for the cooking! Enjoy, new follower

Thanks a lot =)

Following as well ^^

LOVE LOVE LOVE.... I also so appreciate the pictures, cooking with the different seafood is intimidating, but I enjoyed the pictures- you make it look easy. Kudos for the open fire cooking.

My wife is from Spain and talks about this dish all the time. Thanks for sharing.

Yum!! I might have to try this on a BGE.

Discrepo de la receta totalmente. Para empezar es la primera paella valenciana de pescado que visto nunca ya que la receta tradicional valenciana es con carne y caracoles ect.
En cualquier caso la paella de marisco es catalana y nunca lleva pez espada, ni ninungun tipo de pez , es exclusivamente de mariscos y moluscos. ya que es un plato de origen humilde tampoco lleva vieïras.
No has especificado que el arroz de paella es arroz bomba ( redondo ) y para una persona que no viva en españa le va a costa mucho encontrar un sazonador de paella pero si especificas las especias que llevas no lo encontrarian seguro( para sazonar paellas : un poco de romero, 2 hebras de azafran , pimenton dulce, sal, y un poco de curcuma.( Esto ultimo no es necesario ya que se usa azafran)
Escribo esta replica porque como catalan que ha vivido en valencia me duele ver una receta tan inexacta y sobretodo que digas que es paella valenciana cuando repito LA PAELLA VALENCIANA NO LLEVA NI PEZ NI MARISCO , y la de marinera tradicional no es asi. y sin animo de ofender esa paella tiene muy mala pinta.

Primero de todo, la paella tenia in sabor buenisimo, hasta socarrat salia y todo. Segundo, en la segunda linea de la narracion especifico que es una paella marinera, yo no le pongo mejillones pq en casa no nos gustan. La razon de ponerle unos tacos de mero es porque añade un buen sabor al sofrito de marisco ya que al vivir en Inglaterra es muy dificil encontrar marisco fresco sin gastarte una fortuna, y debes saber que la diferencia en el sabor es apreciable.
Yo tambien he vivido en Valencia durante 7 años y siendo pescatariana esta es la paella que he comido.
Ahora lo que creo que estaba muy fuera de lugar es que insultaras mi trabajo y encima pusieras un "sin animo de ofender".

Tiene razon el amigo esto no tiene muy buena pinta eh

Entonces no deberias poner en el titulo paella tradicional valenciana porque no lo es. Deberias poner esta es mi interpretación de paella.
Si creas contenidos asegurate de informarte bien.

Y tambien deberias estar preparada para recibir criticas ya que te expones a ello al postear.

Que buena pinta tiene, un post verdaderamente currado a fondo :)
Tienes nuevo seguidor!

Muchas gracias ^^.

Necitamos mas! Necitamos mas recetas y fotos por favor!