Paella Valenciana (Valencian Paella)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 The night before, cover the 100 g dried garrofó with 1 litre of cold water and soak for 12 hours - at room temperature in a cool kitchen, but in the fridge if the room is above about 22°C / 72°F, because warm soaking water turns the beans sour and sets their skins so they never soften - then drain. A properly soaked bean has roughly doubled, feels plump, and shows no opaque hard core when you split one with a thumbnail. If you can only get jarred butter beans, skip the soak entirely, drain 250 g and stir them in for the last 10 minutes of the broth simmer instead, which is what most Valencian kitchens do out of season and nobody apologises for it.
2. 2 Set a 38 cm (15 in) carbon-steel paella pan on the heat - this is the size that matches 400 g of rice, and going wider is a real mistake rather than a harmless one, because the same 1.5 litres of broth spread over a 42 cm pan runs dry before the grain is cooked through. Check the pan is level by pouring in 250 ml of water: it should pool as an even disc dead centre, and if it runs to one side, shim the pan or the burner with folded foil until it does not, because an unlevel pan gives you hard rice on the high side and soup on the low side. Dry the pan thoroughly, and note that unless you have a paellero gas ring, a pan this wide straddled across two domestic burners needs rotating a quarter turn every 2 minutes throughout the entire cook so the outer ring cooks at the same rate as the middle.
3. 3 Pat the chicken and rabbit dry, season them all over with 8 g of the salt, then pour the 120 ml olive oil into the dry pan and heat over high until it shimmers and a scrap of meat sizzles instantly, roughly 180°C / 356°F. Lay the pieces in a single layer around the outer two thirds of the pan and fry for 18-22 minutes, turning every 4-5 minutes, until every face is deep mahogany brown and the cut bone ends have coloured. This is where essentially all the flavour of the broth comes from, so pale, steamed-looking meat here gives you a thin, forgettable paella and there is no later step that rescues it; if the pieces are releasing water and sitting in it rather than crackling, your heat is too low or the pan is crowded.
4. 4 Push the meat out to the rim and drop the 200 g flat green beans into the cleared centre, frying them over medium-high for 4-5 minutes until they blister, wrinkle slightly and turn dull olive green rather than bright, then push them out to the rim to join the meat. They are meant to end up soft, not crisp, so do not stop short here expecting them to stay green - they have a 40 minute simmer ahead of them.
5. 5 Clear a well in the middle of the pan, add the 200 g grated tomato pulp and cook over medium for 6-8 minutes, scraping the base, until it darkens from red to brick, stops smelling sharp, and the oil separates and runs clear around the edge of the well. There is no onion in this sofrito and there never has been, because onion sweetens the base and releases water that softens the grain - it is the single most reliable marker of a paella made by someone from somewhere else. Now pull the pan clean off the heat, scatter in the 1 1/2 tsp pimentón dulce and stir it through the hot oil and tomato for 15-20 seconds only; paprika scorches and turns irreversibly bitter in well under a minute over live flame, and it will take the whole dish down with it.
6. 6 Return the pan to high heat, pour in 2.4 litres of the water, add the drained garrofó and 12 g salt, and bring to the boil at 100°C / 212°F. Then drop it straight back to a gentle simmer around 95°C / 203°F - surface just trembling, a lazy bubble here and there, never a rolling boil, which in a pan this wide would boil off far more than you want and leave the rabbit stringy - and hold it uncovered for 40 minutes, until the level has dropped by roughly a quarter to a third and a spoon pressed into the rabbit thigh meets no resistance. Meanwhile toast the saffron threads in a dry small pan or a foil parcel over low heat for 30-40 seconds until they go brittle and smell intensely of hay and honey, crumble them between your fingers and stir them in for the final 10 minutes. Do not be tempted to substitute a stock cube or shop-bought stock for this stage: the broth is not a shortcut ingredient here, it is the dish being built.
7. 7 Ladle the broth out into a heatproof jug, leaving the meat and vegetables in the pan, and measure it: you want exactly 1.5 litres for bomba rice, or 1.2 litres for Senia or Albufera, which absorb less. Top up from the boiling kettle or pour the excess away, return it to the pan and bring it back to a hard boil at 100°C / 212°F, then taste it and correct the salt until it tastes just slightly too salty to drink on its own - the rice will absorb all of it, and this is the last moment in the entire recipe when you can season the dish.
8. 8 Rain the 400 g rice evenly across the whole surface of the boiling broth, drag a spoon through it once or twice to level it into a flat layer no deeper than 1.5 cm with every grain submerged, and then never touch it again. From this second onward, stirring drags starch out of the grains and turns paella into risotto: the resulting creaminess cannot be cooked out, cannot be drained off, and is not a matter of taste - it is simply the wrong dish.
9. 9 Hold the pan at a full, noisy rolling boil at 100°C / 212°F across its entire surface for 10 minutes, rotating it a quarter turn every 2 minutes and shifting it between burners so the outer ring boils as hard as the centre. At the end of this stage broth should still be clearly visible moving around the grains and the rice should still be well short of done; if the surface has already gone dry at minute 10 your heat is too high and the grain will finish chalky.
10. 10 Drop the heat to a gentle simmer for a further 6-8 minutes, laying the rosemary sprig on top for the last 3 minutes and lifting it out before it turns medicinal - the rosemary stands in for the vaquetes, the snails that go into the field version, and swapping one for the other is standard Valencian home practice. By minute 16-18 the pan should be dry: tilt it and no broth should run to the edge, and a grain bitten from the middle should be tender through with no chalky core. Add no liquid at all after minute 10 unless you genuinely have to - the one exception is rice still chalky in a pan that has already gone dry, in which case trickle 100 ml from the boiling kettle around the rim, never cold water, which would stall the pan and stop the crust forming.
11. 11 Turn the heat to maximum for 90 seconds to 3 minutes to build the socarrat: the sound shifts from wet bubbling to a dry crackle like something frying, and you will smell toasted rice and hot oil. The instant that smell picks up any acrid or bitter edge, cut the heat immediately - the line between socarrat and burnt is about 20 seconds wide, and burnt cannot be hidden under the rice. To check, press a spoon down at the edge and drag it: you should feel a firm crust that resists, then releases with a scrape.
12. 12 Off the heat, cover the pan loosely with a clean damp tea towel or a sheet of newspaper - never a lid, which traps steam and softens the crust you just spent 3 minutes building - and rest it 8-10 minutes so the grains firm up and the last of the moisture equalises. Serve straight from the pan at the table, each person eating inwards from their own wedge with a wooden spoon, with nothing more than a plate of sliced tomato and onion salad, a cold beer or a young Valencian red, and lemon wedges on the side for anyone who wants them, though most Valencians will not.

// CLASSIFICATIONS