The birthplace of paella is Spain. Paella - the culinary symbol of sunny Valencia

Paella, a rice-based dish, is the real pride and symbol of Spanish cuisine. Everyone knows that the birthplace of paella is Spain, but if you look deeper, the birthplace of paella is the Spanish province of Valencia, namely a place 12 kilometers south of the provincial capital near Lake Albufera, where rice was grown in marshy fields for many centuries. It is believed that Spanish paella was first prepared here, in the lakeside village of El Palmar.

Origin story spanish dish from rice and the tradition of its consumption dates back to the first millennium AD. However, Spanish paella, which is more similar to modern paella, appeared only in the 15th century. In the Middle Ages, it was prepared in broth cooked with offal or chicken breast, and was referred to in ancient cookbooks as “Valencian rice.” The variety of paella recipes originated in the Middle Ages.

Paella must be cooked over fire

For centuries, the preparation of paella has been a celebratory occasion. Despite the fact that today in the homeland of paella this dish is not considered a delicacy, since ancient times a tradition has formed of holding culinary festivals dedicated to this Spanish dish of rice. In Spanish posters they can be recognized as "Paelles al Carrer". These are traditional culinary fairs held on the streets of different cities, where all passers-by are treated to free generous portions of paella. In some cities in Spain there are competitions for best cooking paellas. For example, in Peniscola in the province of Castellon, a culinary duel is included in the festival in honor of Saint Roque, and in the Valencian city of Sueca, the International Valencian Paella Competition is held annually.

It is important that Spanish customs include cooking paella over a fire: during culinary fights and holidays, the dish is prepared in wide vats standing on a tagan - a stand with three legs. Fire adds a unique smoky aroma to paella and reveals all the richness of the flavors of the spices added to it.

You can prepare paella with a characteristic aroma using special devices, which are often used in establishments Catering. Such devices are called “paellero”, and they use household gas to operate.

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Before becoming the queen of the Spanish table, paella was a common food of Valencian peasants. Her birthplace is considered to be the fishing village of El Palmarraion near Albufera, a coastal lake on the Mediterranean coast, separated from the sea by a narrow strip of washed-up sand. The Arabs, who conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, began to grow on these marshy lands. important component your diet - rice. In these fields and in rice paddies in Andalusia, Extremadura, Valencia and Catalonia, a large harvest of cereals is harvested. There is enough of it not only for the whole of Spain, but also for export. Every year, Spain sells about 300 thousand tons of rice to other countries.

Paella mixed

In the 13th century, after the expulsion of the Muslims, Christian rulers in Valencia declared a ban on foreign grains, but their veto was defeated. By that time, rice had gained popularity among the people. The Valencians added to it what they had at hand - fish, snails, green beans, mussels, shrimp, poultry, rabbit meat. The rice perfectly absorbed and mixed the flavors of the various ingredients. By the beginning of the 19th century, paella was already loved throughout Spain and is still popular today like football, carnival and the Virgin Mary.

What is paella and how is it eaten?

If you want to try “real” paella in Spain, then know:

Nowhere is good paella prepared for dinner; you can only order it for lunch and for at least two people, since...
Traditionally, paella is cooked and served directly in the pan, unless it is a set meal, when the dish is divided into plates. Some establishments serve wooden spoons because it is believed that metal utensils give the paella a metallic taste. Even in the most elegant restaurants there is no shame in eating paella from a frying pan. Most places will bring you a fork and knife and ask, “Do you need plates?”
if the paella is with seafood, then the shrimp, shells and other seafood will be uncleaned. In Spain they prepare the so-called “lazy” paella or parellada - where all the seafood is peeled. Parellada is named after a Barcelona gourmet, Julie Parellada, who did not like to get his hands dirty.
The paella will be served with lemon slices on the edges of the pan. It tastes great if you sprinkle it with lemon juice.
paella, depending on the composition, can be washed down with red, white or pink dry wine
and finally, when the pan is empty, you need to carefully scrape the socarrat - the burnt crust of rice - from the bottom with a serving spoon. It is considered the most “tasty morsel” in paella, and experts use it to evaluate the quality of the dish.

Paella Day - Thursday

Paella with seafood

Why is Thursday Paella Day in Spain? It is not known exactly; there are no government decrees in this regard. Maybe because the fishermen who went to sea on Monday returned with their catch only on Thursday... or maybe because Thursday was the cook's day off and the Spanish nobility dined out. Paella was popular and restaurant chefs tried to please and attract customers. To this day, on Thursdays, almost every catering establishment in Spain offers paella.

Special frying pan

Word paella means frying pan. Previously, paella was cooked in cauldrons, and since the 17th century, in a special dish - a paella frying pan. Its shape became wide, shallow and flat, with a concave bottom in the center. The liquid in it evaporates equally around the entire circumference, which creates optimal conditions for fast and even cooking. Under no circumstances should you wash the pael maker like regular dishes! According to experts, this kills the taste. Its inner surface should be wiped with a cloth or rags.

Standard paella pans are designed for a certain number of people and have a diameter from 20 cm (for two servings) to 90 centimeters (for 8-10 people). They are sold in any supermarket in Spain. The cheapest of them are aluminum, the best are cast iron or stainless steel. Included with the cookware, you can buy a special gas burner, the burner of which is a tube twisted into a spiral with holes for gas. This design allows the pan to be heated evenly over the entire area, which is very difficult to achieve on open fire and impossible on a regular stove. There is another option for special utensils for preparing paella - electric paella makers. New frying pan It is advisable to wipe it with vinegar and coarse sand so that it does not give a metallic taste.

Julio Camba: "Paella, a romantic dish, full of life and local flavor"

Yes, paella is a special dish. The thickness of the rice layer in a good paella should not exceed two centimeters, so the more mouths there are, the larger the pan should be. The largest paella was prepared in 2001 in the suburbs of Madrid in a pan with a total area of 400 m2 for 100,000 people. Construction cranes and specially made giant rakes were used to mix 6,000 kilograms of rice and 12,500 kilograms of meat.

Sea paella at Fiesta de Mayo

Each Spanish province prepares paella differently, so it is not surprising that only spanish recipes There are more than 300 of this dish: paella with seafood, vegetable paella with artichokes and green peas, meat with rabbit and pork ribs, with black rice - prepared with squid and cuttlefish, the ink of which gives it its characteristic color. Favorite in Catalonia, arroz a banda, “empty” rice, is cooked in a strong broth from sea fish and crabs and eat fish separately with garlic sauce alioli, rice separately.

Cooking for loved ones and family

If in public catering Paella day- Thursday, then it is prepared at home on Sundays, when the whole family gathers for lunch. You can prepare three of the most popular types Spanish paella: Valencian(valenciana), with seafood(marinera) and mixed(mixta).

Recipe:

To prepare paella for four people you will need:

Frying pan with a diameter of 40 cm
300 g round rice, best of all Valencian varieties: Senia, Bahia or Bomba. You should not take long-grain or steamed ones, they absorb liquid much worse
Meat 1/2 rabbit or 500 g chicken
Seafood - 1 kg
Tomatoes 3-5 pcs. or 100 grams of fresh tomato paste
Garlic - 4 cloves
Sweet pepper - 1 pc.
Saffron “threads” - 3-4 pcs.
Spice - sweet paprika - 1 tbsp.
Water or broth
Olive oil - 150 gr
Salt to taste
2 lemons

Cut the meat into pieces 3x5 centimeters, with bones, and fry over medium heat until golden crust. Fry well and make sure it doesn't burn.

Add chopped tomatoes without peel. We fry everything. Once the tomatoes have turned into a paste, you can add a teaspoon of sugar to neutralize the acid. Follow this with a teaspoon of red ground pepper(sweet), stirring all the time. Make sure that the pepper does not burn, otherwise the dish will be bitter. Next, add several “strings” of saffron (approximately one per serving).

Fill with water, salt and increase the heat. Let's boil.

If paella with seafood, That:

First fry the unpeeled ones in oil fresh shrimp. Set them aside. The shrimp are returned to the paella five minutes before they are ready or placed on a ready-made dish.
Cut the squid and cuttlefish into 2×2 centimeter pieces and fry in the same oil until golden brown.
Add finely chopped garlic and tomato, red pepper and pour it all over fish broth. When the broth boils, add all the clams in their shells to the pan.

If mixed paella, That:

Fry the shrimp, set them aside and add them at the very end.
After frying the meat, then add cuttlefish and squid to it.

Add rice and spread it in an even layer over the entire area of the pan. The water should cover the rice by 2 centimeters. This is very important point in preparing paella. Too much water - the rice will turn into porridge, not enough water - the rice will be hard and unsaturated.
Add saffron and colorant for paella. Sold in stores as a spice.
Don't stir the rice anymore.
It is also important to carefully control the strength of the fire: for the first 8–10 minutes it should be strong, then reduce it and wait another 5–7 minutes. During this time, if the proportions are correct, all excess liquid will evaporate. If you see that the rice is not ready, add water (or broth). If you think the rice is ready, turn the heat up very high for one minute to create a crust, socarrat, on the bottom.
The last minutes of the paella are cooked over low heat.
Spread the toasted paprika pieces.
Remove the paella from the heat and leave for five minutes.
After 5 minutes, serve the “Queen” to the table in a frying pan with lemon slices scattered around the edges.

Let's take paella for example. The demand for this food is determined by big amount variations in components that are adapted to different regions of Spain. Therefore, there are recipes for this delicacy. a large number of. Spanish chefs say there are more than three hundred of them.

Spanish paella, the recipe for which we will definitely look at today, is traditionally served on Sunday. It may include seafood, chicken, beans, herbs and spices. This dish can be found in almost all restaurants in the world. There are many ways to prepare this delicacy: from traditional recipe to a fantastic variation that claims to be a culinary masterpiece.

National Spanish dish

Paella is a dish made from white rice with the addition of olive oil and saffron. Meat, chicken, various vegetables, seafood and more. The quality of the dish is determined by the fact that all the ingredients have time to cook at the same time, so the rice remains crumbly. Traditionally, paella is cooked over an open fire. Let's look at several recipes for its preparation.

Paella with chicken

Ingredients:

one chicken;
five tablespoons of olive oil;
five hundred grams of squid rings;
six hundred grams of mussels;
two onions;
five hundred grams of rice;
five hundred grams of meat broth;
one bitter and one sweet pepper;
one clove of garlic;
ten black olives;
two hundred grams of green peas;
two pinches of saffron.

Preparation:

Spanish paella, the recipe for which we are now considering, is prepared as follows. First, the chicken is cut into twelve parts, salted and peppered, and fried in olive oil. Then the pieces are taken out and placed in a warm place. Fry in the remaining fat and also place in a warm place. Boil the mussels for five minutes in a small amount of water. Sweet peppers are cut into cubes and stewed together with chopped onions in the same fat. Rice is also fried in it, broth and saffron are added, and mixed well. Then add peas, olives and other ingredients, salt and pepper, simmer for half an hour, periodically adding liquid. Paella is very tasty and hearty dish, which is served directly in the pan.

Traditional paella

Ingredients:

thirty grams of olive oil;
four hundred and fifty grams of chicken fillet;
two hundred and fifty grams of pork shoulder;
one hundred grams of onion;
three feathers of garlic;
eighty grams of sweet red pepper;
five grams of paprika;
four hundred grams of tomatoes;
five grams of saffron;
one liter of chicken broth;
four hundred grams of squid meat;
one hundred seventy-five grams of green beans;
one hundred twenty-five grams of fresh peas;
one kilogram two hundred grams of peeled shrimp;
six hundred grams of lemon.

Cooking a Spanish dish

Spanish paella is quite simple to prepare. To do this, heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the seasoned meat (chicken and pork) in it for two minutes. Then add onion, paprika and garlic, simmer for three minutes, stirring constantly. Then they put tomatoes and Bell pepper, cut into cubes. Next, add rice and cook for two minutes, add broth with saffron diluted in it, squid, bring to a boil and cook for twenty minutes under a closed lid. After time has passed, add peas and beans to the mixture, place shrimp and mussels on top, sprinkle with black pepper, and cook for ten minutes. During this time, the mussels should open.

Paella with shrimp, the recipe for which we reviewed, is served directly in the pan along with lemon halves. Chicken and pork can be replaced with fish such as monkfish or hake. In this case, it is placed after the squid. It is good to cook this dish over an open fire.

Paella with seafood

Ingredients:

five hundred grams of seafood cocktail;
half a spoon of saffron;
forty grams of olive oil;
one onion;
three hundred grams of Valencia rice;
one spoon of salt;
two hundred grams of tomato puree;
one hundred grams of frozen green peas;
half a sweet pepper;
one fourth of a lemon.

Preparation:

Spanish paella is prepared very simply and quickly. To do this, frozen seafood is defrosted and drained. excess liquid. Pour boiling water over the saffron and leave for fifteen minutes to infuse. Seafood is fried in oil for three minutes. high fire, take it out and set it aside for a while. Fry chopped onion in this oil until golden brown, add rice and fry for two minutes (during this time it will become transparent). Then add water with saffron diluted in it so that it covers the cereal.

Valencia rice is best suited for paella; the dish will then be aromatic and appetizing. The mixture is salted and kept on the fire until cooked for about twenty minutes, without stirring. Then add the tomato pulp, and ten minutes later add peas and peppers, cut into cubes. When the rice is cooked and the water has boiled away, place seafood and lemon slices on top, cover with a lid and let it brew for five minutes. Paella with vegetables and seafood is eaten hot, and wine is served with the dish. Usually this delicacy is cooked over an open fire, but at home you can use a regular stove. The dish is prepared in large cast iron frying pan, and it is served in it.

recipe

The multicooker makes it possible without special troubles cook Mediterranean dish, which will refresh anyone festive table, diversifies the daily menu.

Ingredients:

two glasses of Jasmine rice;
five hundred grams of salmon fillet;
two tomatoes;
two onions;
one sweet pepper;
four hundred grams of water;
one hundred grams of olive oil;
garlic;
salt and saffron to taste.

Preparation:

Paella is a Spanish dish, but every housewife can prepare it without much hassle, especially if she has a slow cooker in her arsenal. So, first, the rice is washed and placed in the multicooker bowl. Finely chop the onion, salmon and tomatoes, and bell pepper cut large. Place the rice on top in layers: onions, tomatoes, then peppers and only then salmon. Garlic is placed in the center of the mixture, the “Pilaf” mode is turned on and cooked. After time has passed, the garlic is removed and the “Heating” mode is turned on.

The paella in the slow cooker is almost ready. Its recipe is quite simple. Ready dish served with lemon slices and fresh herbs.

Paella with meatballs

Ingredients:

four hundred grams of rice;
five hundred grams of rabbit;
five hundred grams of chicken;
two hundred and fifty grams of green beans;
one hundred grams of white beans;
sixteen snails;
one tomato;
three cloves of garlic;
one hundred grams of olive oil;
rosemary, saffron and salt to taste;
two liters of water.

For meatballs: three hundred grams of minced meat, fifty grams pork fat, three hundred grams of pulp white bread, two cloves of garlic, three eggs, and Pine nuts, chopped parsley, salt and spices.

Preparation:

Paella is a dish that is quite easy to prepare. It is necessary to heat the fat in a frying pan, on which the minced meat is then fried. After five minutes, add bread, eggs, salt and spices, parsley, nuts and garlic. Mix everything well and form small meatballs from this mass. They are fried for several minutes on all sides. Then the rabbit pieces are fried in the same fat as the minced meat. The finished meat is pushed to the edges of the pan, and vegetables are placed in the center and fried. Next, add water and bring it to a boil, after which add the meatballs and cook for twenty minutes. Paella - to which seafood is added. But in our case they are replaced by snails. Therefore, after time, snails, saffron and paprika are added, salted to taste and rice is poured. Cook the food for twenty minutes on high heat, and then another five minutes on low.

Paella with fish and seafood

Ingredients:

one kilogram of fish (pike perch or cod);
one onion;
two hundred grams of mussels in shells;
one large shrimp;
three hundred grams of sea cocktail;
two hundred grams of small shrimp;
two tomatoes;
one glass of Bomba rice;
half a spoon;
one packet of paella spices.

Preparation:

Paella with shrimp, the recipe for which we will now look at, is prepared very quickly. You need to cut the fish, add water and bring to a boil, then add onions, spices and cook until tender. Ready broth filter. Pour oil into a frying pan, lay out the mussels and heat them, and then transfer them to a dish. All the shrimp are fried and placed on a plate. Fry tomatoes in the same oil for several minutes, add rice, paprika and stir. Then pour in two glasses of broth, add paella spices and stir. All this is simmered until cooked, adding mussels, shrimp and seafood at the end.

A few final words

In this Spanish dish, seafood goes well with rice. So, Italian risotto, Spanish paella and Creole jambalaya, as well as simple pilaf are dishes with the same ideology. Therefore, here rice is always cooked separately, often together with vegetables and spices, and only at the end are previously fried seafood added. The cereal is cooked in a small amount of water or broth. In paella and jambalaya you can find not only vegetables, but also caviar and fish. But cuttlefish ink is often added to risotto, giving the dish an extraordinary color and a slight “marine” taste.

Spanish cuisine has a lot traditional dishes, but the most popular is paella. There are more than 300 recipes for the dish, but whatever they are, rice and saffron remain the same ingredients.

The Spaniards cook paella in a special frying pan called paella. It is made of thick metal, has impressive dimensions, low sides and a wide flat bottom. This allows you to place all the ingredients in one small layer, where the water evaporates evenly and quickly, preventing the rice from boiling.

In each province of Spain, paella is prepared differently. Usually the composition includes products available to residents: chicken, rabbit, seafood, fish, green beans and tomatoes. There is nothing complicated in preparation, so anyone can make paella at home.

Paella with seafood

You will need:

400 gr. round grain rice;
a pair of large onions;
a couple of tomatoes;
olive oil;
0.5 kg of mussels in shells;
8 large shrimp;
250 gr. squid rings;
4 medium cloves of garlic;
a couple of sweet peppers;
1 carrot;
a bunch of parsley;
a whisper of saffron, Bay leaf, salt.

Peel the onions, garlic and carrots. Remove the heads, shells and intestinal veins from the shrimp. Separate the leaves from the parsley. Place the shrimp shells and heads in a saucepan, add water and wait until it boils. Add carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, onion, bay leaf, parsley stems and salt. Cook for 30 minutes and strain the resulting broth.

Peel and then chop the tomatoes. Core the peppers and cut them into thin strips. Combine 2 cloves of garlic with parsley and grind into a paste. Dilute the saffron a small amount water.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and place the washed midi in it, wait until they open and transfer to any suitable container. Place the peeled shrimp in the frying pan, soak them for 3 minutes, remove and transfer to the mussels.

Place tomatoes, crushed garlic, and squid in a frying pan and fry them for 4 minutes. Add the rice, stirring, cook for 6 minutes, add the pepper and cook the mixture for another 4 minutes. Pour the broth, saffron, salt into the pan, add mussels and shrimp and cook the rice until cooked.

Paella with chicken

You will need:

500 gr. chicken meat;
250 gr. round rice or "arabio";
250 gr. green peas;
1 medium sized onion;
Bell pepper;
2 cloves of garlic;
4 tomatoes or 70 gr. tomato paste;
a pinch of saffron;
0.25 liters of meat broth;
pepper and salt;
olive oil.

Wash and chop the chicken meat. Fry until nice golden brown. In another large, heavy-bottomed frying pan, sauté the diced onion and garlic in olive oil. Once the onion becomes translucent, add the diced pepper and fry the vegetables for a few minutes. Pour the rice into the pan and add a little oil and, stirring, cook over low heat for 3-5 minutes.

Add fried chicken, saffron, tomato paste, salt, peas and broth to the rice, mix everything, when the mixture boils, cook it over low heat for 20-25 minutes, during which time the liquid should evaporate and the rice should become soft. When the chicken paella is cooked, cover the pan and let it sit for 5-10 minutes.

Paella with vegetables

You will need:

1 cup long grain rice;
2 sweet peppers;
1 medium sized onion;
4 tomatoes;
3 medium cloves of garlic;
a pinch of saffron;
150 g, fresh green beans;
700 ml. chicken broth;
pepper and salt.

To prepare paella, start by preparing the vegetables. Wash them, peel the onions and garlic, remove the skin from the tomatoes, the hard tails from the beans, and the core from the peppers. Cut the garlic into thin slices, the onion into half rings, the pepper into strips, the tomatoes into cubes, the beans into pieces 2 cm long.

Fry the onion, pepper and garlic for about 4 minutes in a frying pan with heated oil. Add rice and saffron to them, stirring, fry them for 3 minutes over high heat. Add the broth and tomatoes, bring the mixture to a boil and simmer for 1/4 hour over low heat. Add the beans, pepper and salt, and simmer the paella with vegetables over low heat for about 10 minutes.

We continue our gastronomic journey through national cuisines peace. Let's move to sunny Spain and get acquainted with the equally famous paella

According to the Spaniards, paella- not just satisfying and tasty food, this is a kind of national symbol spanish cuisine. In any case, not trying paella means not seeing Spain.

The dish got its name from a special paellera frying pan - it should be low, with a flat bottom and have two handles (on the other hand, why shouldn’t the frying pan be named after the name of the dish?). Paella is prepared and served there.

But don't run out and buy paellera! Experience shows that this Spanish dish can be prepared in any large frying pan or cauldron. The main thing is that the vessel has a heavy bottom (preferably cast iron).

The legend of the origin of paella

There are many stories about the origin of “real paella”. Usually tourists, after hearing a hundred or two versions from their guides or just Spanish friends, become completely confused.

Most often the story goes like this: first this dish appeared in Valencia; “real” paella is called “Valencian paella”). This happened a very long time ago. Listeners claim that the range of dates among different storytellers ranges from the Punic Wars to the beginning of the twentieth century (i.e., about two and a half thousand years!).

So, a noble gentleman came to some village or city (we won’t list them) (here, as you yourself understand, there are very famous names - from Hanibal to Napoleon). The village residents, hospitable people, decided to treat the guest. Everyone brought what they could. And here most storytellers agree, claiming that the main ingredient of the future dish was rice. Saffron and paprika are also mentioned, giving the dish not only taste, but also color. Besides that, someone brought beef tenderloin, some - veal tripe, some - duck, some - chicken, or even turkey. Since the city was located on the seashore (in one version of the story), they brought in fish of all kinds - from small anchovy to large tuna, as well as squid, mussels, and so on.

It was spring, and so beautiful young girls brought freshly picked crocus stamens - saffron. This is what gives the paella golden color and a special aroma. They also took bouquets of fresh spicy herbs- lemon balm, dill, fennel. According to other stories, everything happened in the fall, so they brought vegetables - sweet peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, onions, garlic. Olives and olive oil were also used.

Are you confused? Then let's move on! By some lucky chance, everything was already cleaned, cooked, and fried. All that was left was to mix the ingredients and heat over the fire. By the way, this is the method that is still used in small restaurants and at picnics. But there is another version - all the products were raw and were prepared on the spot.

And only the end of numerous stories is the same - the paella exceeded all the expectations of the noble guest!

Ingredients for paella

So, we understand that when preparing this Spanish dish they use various ingredients, varying quite widely - from a variety of vegetables to fish and meat. The Spaniards themselves believe that there are about three hundred (!) types of paella.

For example, Valencian paella is prepared with chicken and pork or rabbit. And in another paella, marisco, instead of meat they use: shrimp, lobster, mussels. Shellfish can be combined in paella with chicken and rabbit, sometimes even sausage and sausages and eggs are added. There is even paella with black rice - it is tinted with cuttlefish juice.

And although each region of Spain has its own culinary traditions cooking paella, there are also obligatory common features. Thus, the essential components of real Spanish paella are olive oil, garlic, aromatic herbs, saffron (can be replaced with turmeric) and wine.

The variety of products in the recipes is explained by a simple historical fact - paella has always been the food of the poor. Everything in it was accessible. Rabbits were caught well in snares, the Arab Muslim conquerors did not take pork from the local population, and the Mediterranean Sea supplied sea reptiles in unlimited quantities.

Particular importance is attached to paella in Valencia. This is what is cooked in a huge paellera on St. Joseph’s Day (March 19), and right on the street, on a fire. On Thursdays this dish is served in all Spanish restaurants, but the Spaniards themselves believe that restaurant paella is for tourists, and you have to cook the real thing yourself. They cook it: at picnics, served during friendly feasts.