Paella Valenciana: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

I love this mural by Valencian street-artist Escif,
featuring paella valenciana's two main meats,
chicken and rabbit.

As I've mentioned in a previous blog entry, I've grown to acquire the Valencians' sense of pride as well as profound irritation with all the misunderstanding out there surrounding this region's signature rice dishes, and above all, paella valenciana. I recently contributed a series of entries on my mother-in-law's classic paella valenciana recipe to The Spain Scoop, and in the process discovered some egregious examples of "paella valenciana" (in scare quotes) floating around out there in the blogosphere and worldwide web.

Consider this post my effort to clear up the record and call out some erroneous ideas out there about paella, what's in it, and where it's from...

• The Good:

It's my blog, so you'll have to forgive my pretension for listing  my mother-in-law's version here among the good versions of paella valenciana, but her recipe really is great, and follows the guidelines of the recent informal denominación de origen conferred on paella valenciana. If you haven't already, I encourage you to take a moment and review those three entries at The Spain Scoop:

My mother-in-law makes paella valenciana like a pro.

1) "How To Make My Mother-in-law's Valencian Paella – Part 1": In part 1, I outline the basic components of the dish, listing the ingredients you will need while sketching out some of the common misconceptions about the dish and what is used to prepare it.

To quote one newspaper, "El ADN del plato autóctono" [The DNA of the native plate (paella valenciana)] is: Aceite [Vegetable oil], Pollo [Chicken], Conejo [Rabbit], "Ferraura" (bajoqueta) [a local green bean], "Garrafó" [a local white bean], Tomate, Agua [Water], Sal [Salt], Azafrán [Safron], Arroz [the local Valencian rice]"

2) "How To Make My Mother-in-law's Valencian Paella – Part 2": This second entry is probably the most useful of the three – where I layout instructions on how to prepare and cook all the ingredients, to actually make a paella valenciana.

3) "How To Make My Mother-in-law's Paella Valenciana – Part 3": And here I wrap it up by describing how it is served, and how Valencian's love the crusted burnt layer of rice at the bottom of the paella pan, known as "socarrat".

Mmmmmm... socarrat!

I've seen a few expats and Americans who have managed to accurately recreate this dish, so you don't have to be a card-carrying Valencian to do so. Fellow Valencia expat blogger, Leftbanker, posted a picture of what is undeniably authentic paella valenciana on his blog not long ago. (He particularly won me over with this hilarious rant about the English-speaker's tendency to mispronounce "paella".) My Kitchen in Spain, Janet Mendel's fun culinary blog, creatively plays around with the paella recipe on her blog, though she's careful never to mislabel it "paella valenciana", so I don't hold it against her. And Mendel says that you can find the authentic recipe for paella valenciana in her book, My Kitchen in Spain (2002). (I'll have to trust her, since I don't own it. Hint, hint, Janet. Gift idea?)

However, it is very hard to make the _real_ paella valenciana well if you live outside of Spain, since the fresh staples that form the base of this dish aren't grown outside the Valencian province.

Judging by appearances, Leftbanker's paella looked pretty "auténtica" to me.

The real secret to making an excellent paella valenciana is visiting or living in
Valencia where you have access to all the fresh regional ingredients,
at places like this, Valencia's fantastic Mercat Central.

I'm not lying when I say that I don't mind people having a little fun with paella-making.
One of my longtime favorite Valencia bloggers, Paella de Kimchi, made this Valencia-Korea
fusion paella de kimchi. Experimental fun aside, you can tell from this recipe that these
bloggers really know their stuff when it comes to preparing a paella, traditional or not.

• The Bad:

But in preparing blog entries on paella and Valencian rice dishes I have begun to uncover what I believe are the two main sources of many of the erroneous "paellas valencianas" circulating online and especially among the foreign expats and tourists.

Source of confusion 1: An easy tip off as to whether they've messed up the paella recipe. There is no traditional paella (valenciana or otherwise) which has any of the ingredients found in that other classic Valencian rice dish, arroz al horno, such as: costillas de cerdo (pork ribs... or really any kind of pork), morcilla, potato, garlic, chickpeas. If you find any of these ingredients call the local officials immediately you know that the chef is dazed and confused about the traditions of paella-making.

Lesson: Just because it's paella, it's traditional, and it's traditionally from Valencia, doesn't mean it's traditional "paella valenciana". I think a lot of people are confusing the ingredients which appear in other traditional Valencian rice dishes with fair-game paella ingredients, and are maybe also thinking that paella de marisco, a very traditional Valencian paella, is _the_ "paella valenciana"... which it is not.

Never confuse arroz al horno with paella, much less paella valenciana. This _other_ typical Valencian
rice dish is made with a "cazuela" clay pot, and _does_ have pork ribs and chickpeas in it. Paella does not.

"La corrucion, como la paella en ningun sitio, se hace como en Valencia." Translated,
ignoring spelling errors: "Corruption, like paella, in no place do they make it like in Valencia."

Source of confusion 2: Outside the Valencian province, some other paellas have appeared which day-tripping tourists to Spain have understandably taken to be the "auténtico" thing, but which are also far from traditional Valencian dishes. For any fans of "paella mixta" (Madrid's mixed meat, both seafood and chicken, version of the paella dish), or to those of you from Castellón who want to put red pepper in your paella, fine! Do it! Just don't call it "paella valenciana," which it is not. I'm a believer in culinary innovation (here I depart ways with many of my more hardcore Valencian readers), but these bastardizations variations on Valencia's paellas would turn the nose of any Valencian.

Lesson: Paella, and particularly paella valenciana, is from the Valencian Province, not Catalonia, not Castellón or Alicante, in a way, not even "from Spain". And it is a simple dish, without bells and whistles. If you eat or make any other kind, be polite to Valencian pride and heritage and call it something else.

"Paella mixta," the scourge of Valencia pride. This blogger, Chow Times, faced two common pitfalls of
eating paella outside of Valencia (in this case in Barcelona): 1) encountering this untraditional
"mixed" paella, which blends chicken meat with shellfish, bizarre!, a combination that would offend
any Valencian, and 2) soggy rice. (Noooooooo!) Reading this entry broke my heart,
when they wrote, "all Chinese don’t like soggy rice". Well, when it's paella, neither do Valencians!

This paella, with red peppers, presents a more delicate political problem. This is a
traditional paella recipe in Castellón. It is not "paella valenciana", but since Castellón
is in the Comunidad Valenciana, many from this region were upset when the official
paella valenciana recipe excluded red peppers. All I can say to them is, again,
there is a difference between the recipe paella valenciana and paella "from Valencia"!

I'm a bit mystified by this "Paella catalana". For starters, there is no traditional dish in Spain
called "paella catalana". Second, judging from the recipes listed at the link where I found this
photo, these are variations on paella de marisco (one of many Valencian paellas). Third,
this kind of lobster (bogavante) is not traditionally put in paella, but rather arroz meloso or arroz caldoso.

• The Ugly:

But where things get ugly is the use of the term "paella valenciana" to sell any and every kind of fried rice dish abroad. One point of confusion is that there is a "paella caribeña" recipe floating out there. I don't know where it was originally from, or how traditional it is, but it is often sold in the States with the title "Spanish paella", which it is not. Why? Well, first and foremost because it uses regular white rice. And this leads to the other serious infraction in the States: the mistaken idea that making "Spanish fried rice" or "saffron rice" is all it takes to call something "paella". No! You need to use the special Valencian round-grain rice to make it (i.e. arroz bomba, as in 'Arroz de Valencia' or even the Murcian Calasparra). (And, no, you can't just substitute the completely different Italian Arborio rice, used in risotto!) Perhaps you once had the excuse in the States that it was hard to find "arroz bomba", but with LaTienda.com such is no longer the case.

From what I've seen in the States and online, paella caribeña appears to be
a seafood-style fried rice dish with peas. But the two things which mark it as
_very_ un-Valencian: 1) it is usually loaded with ingredients, drowning out the rice
and simplicity, and 2) it uses long-grain rice instead of the special round Spanish variety.

Socarrat's peculiar paella menu.

As I said at the start, in my online searches I ran across a lot of tragically hilarious faux pas paellas of fancy U.S. restaurants or catering services claiming to sell "paella valenciana" and yet even the most cursory glance can tell you it was a serious screw up of the region's most famous dish. For example, the fancy New York City "paella bar" (whatever that is) called Socarrat in Chelsea lists some bizarre paellas on its menu. Again, I have no complaints about mixing it up and innovating, so I was keeping an open-minded about them as I read their menu (though I've never heard of eggplant in a paella). Until I saw it, the "Valenciana"... with pork ribs and asparagus. Yikes!

And I'm not sure what to say to well-meaning culinary bloggers who, in their misinformation and sloppiness, put up recipes for "Paella Valencia" with chorizo in it, or ones that put up a correct meat recipe for "Paella Valenciana" but for some reason post a picture of paella de marisco (?). It is thanks to these many bloggers and recipe posters that a google image search of "paella valenciana" turns up a lot of junk false, baroque misrepresentations of Valencia's simple, humble dish.

Lesson: In Valencia, where people eat paella all the time, there is a kind of unspoken law of minimalism, put the minimal amount of ingredients to give it a flavor, but don't cover the pan edge to edge with ingredients. The idea is not to crowd out the rice when you're adding ingredients, because the rice is the protagonist.

But do you wanna get a Valencian _really_ mad? Point them to this American (San Diego based) catering website: Paella Valenciana, Paella Catering You Can Trust. Yes, folks! The company that has managed to corner the online domain name for "paella valenciana dot com" is selling the world's biggest fake for paella valenciana!!! Here I quote for you the caption under their menu entry for the dish:

Paella Valenciana is a very popular succulent mix of paella with fresh chicken, sea-food and vegetables. You can customize your paella choice with your choice of shrimp, calamari, mussels, clams, scallops, crab claws, fish and lobster. 

Where does one start when tearing apart critiquing this? (Well, with the obvious, that the dish doesn't have sea-food in it.) But I'm confused by what they mean when they say paella valenciana is a mix of paella _with_ those ingredients. Paella _is_ those ingredients, plus rice and some other things. And how American of them is it to offer tailor-made paellas valencianas. Don't consider this a gripe. I'm just howling with laughter at the utter disregard Americans can give to European traditions and importance placed on authenticity, even as they are capitalizing off the mystique of European traditions and history.

You guys call this "Paella Valenciana"!!! Are you kidding me?
How did you get the license for this domain name?

So let's making this shaming process an official game. I hereby offer you the "Paella Hall of Shame". If you find a picture, recipe, restaurant, or website online that is perpetuating these preposterous paellas, make a comment here with a linkback to it. In turn, if you are one of the shamed and have changed your evil ways, post here, and I promise I will remove the link or mention of you.

***UPDATE: I've discovered a whole community of people living in Madrid who are annoyed with all these poser paellas out there... and they've started a web project calling them out! Check out La Comunidad de la Paella if you're looking for a good place to have paella in Spain's capital, because there aren't as many as you would think!***

The Paella Hall of Shame:
• How to cook Paella - Gordon Ramsay Recipe [finder credits to Leftbanker]
• Paella Valenciana, Paella Catering You Can Trust (San Diego, U.S.A.)
• Socarrat Paella Bar (NYC, U.S.A.)
• LaPaella.co.uk (Aberdeen, U.K.) [Again, claims prime URL real estate but then confuse paella mixta with "paella valenciana"... And _broccoli_ in the vegetable paella? I've never heard of that. Unwitting finder credits to GoSpain.About.Com on its "History of Paella" entry]
• Antonio Banderas's Paella [which in 2011 caused a scandal in Valencia for its use of chorizo, among other very unorthodox ingredients] (Here on Univisión he says the secret to paella is "el sofrito", but then lists some bizarre ingredients ... Though in fairness, he states here in a Brazilian show that "Es la paella mía" and not the "valenciana" ... judging from his accounts, it's a paella mixta with substitutions that apparently Banderas finds in Chinatown markets.)
• Awesome 1960s German TV program sings how to make "Paella de Valencia" a.k.a. "paella valenciana"... I can't even count the number of mistakes in their recipe. But who cares? The song is priceless!!!
...

That Perfect Gift: Spanish Cookbooks

If you, your friend, or your family don't already have a good Spanish cuisine cookbook, then why not add that to the Christmas shopping list this year? My wife and I like to cook, and when we were in the States we found a few cookbooks that met her high standards for "authentic," but also addressed the fact that you can't always find the exact same ingredients in the U.S. that authentic recipes call for in Spain.

In my opinion _the_ best Spanish cookbook in English is Penelope Casas's The Food and Wines of Spain (1982). Casas, married to a madrileño and a regular visitor to Spain, has been writing cookbooks for more than three decades. The Foods and Wines of Spain continues to be my favorite book by her, though she has other good ones. Great insights and cultural commentary accompany her recipes, which are pretty close to authentic if not spot on, but which also make good suggestions on sometimes necessary substitutions.

All the books in the Culinaria series will
make for nice additions to your kitchen

Another great cookbook to own is Culinaria Spain, by Marion Trutter. This is simply a beautiful book to own. It is great not just for the recipes and tips on cooking, but you will also want to put it on display and eat up the large colorful photos with your eyes. (This book actually makes a nice accompaniment to Penelope Casas's, which has no photos at all.) Culinaria is organized by region and has really nice spreads on the typical foods, ingredients, and dishes one can find in each region of Spain.

I also recommend you consider the various books by my fellow expat blogger Janet Mendel. On her blog she gives a nice overview of local ingredients and the kinds of cooking techniques and styles that people here use to prepare them. Given that she has been living in Spain for decades, the depth of her knowledge and appreciation for Spanish cuisine give her books an edge over the dozens of hack Tapas and Mediterranean cookbooks that are now flooding U.S. bookshelves. Perusing the online descriptions and profiles for each of her books, I would say that Cooking in Spain (1987, 2006) is your best bet for a standard recipe book. Cooking from the Heart of Spain (2006) and Traditional Spanish Cooking (2006) are better for those foodies who like to journey through the cultures and histories of their dishes and recipes. And Tapas—A Bite of Spain (2008), her latest book, caters to those of you wishing to tap into the recent culinary craze of tapas in the UK and U.S.

Check out Mendel's own description of her books at her blog here.

In general Mendel's recipes sound delicious, but be warned, they are often slightly different than traditional or conventional recipes. My litmus test for Americans who cook Spanish food is their paella recipe. (I can't help it, what with living in Valencia, the paella heartland.) Mendel's approach to this dish on her blog is actually quite ingenious. Recognizing the difficulty of reproducing authentic paella, she offers her readers "Paella a la Americana," a twist on the recipe chock-full of seafood goodies that Americans will enjoy and which simulates the idea of Spanish paella. I commend her efforts at exporting the paella principle abroad, though with my wife's proviso: this is not Spanish, and certainly not Valencian paella. (Penelope Casas, for example, is correct to observe that it is a common misconception in the US "that paella is loaded with ingredients." It is actually usually served in Valencia with fixed ensembles or combinations of a few select ingredients.) Since Mendel makes no pretense of her recipes being "traditional," I'm inclined to forgive these divergences from the "real thing." The most important thing is that the dishes taste good, right?

One feature that I like about Mendel's blog is that, since she is blogging her recipes throughout the year, she more or less follows the seasonal eating that Spaniards follow. In other words, she uses the ingredients as they become available and are in season. So the blog indirectly gives you some sense of when to look for figs or "higos" (answer: late summer) or cook traditional dishes with pomegranate, a.k.a. "granadas" (when they appear in Spanish markets in the fall).

For more cookbook or Spanish cuisine ideas, you can also check out these links:

http://spanish.about.com/cs/spanishcookbooks/

http://www.foodsfromspain.com/

Rice Culture in Valencia. It's More Than Just Paella

So apparently the only famous thing Hemingway ever did in Valencia was eat paella in La Pepica, a restaurant at the city beach. I know this because every guide on the planet (at least written in English) seems to direct tourists there for it. I'm going to resist the urge to rant, and just say that, while the paella at La Pepica is good, it is probably overpriced, flooded with tourists, and hardly the only place to eat this famous Valencian dish.

Hemingway forever consecrating La Pepica in his book, The Dangerous Summer,
as a "must visit" spot for American tourists in Valencia.

What's more, since I live here in Valencia, home to the famous rice dish, I feel obliged to explain that rice culture in this region runs deep, and is not just about paella. Valencians are really big rice eaters in general. Among the dishes you can sample, there are, broadly speaking, at least five different categories of classic rice plates: "paella," "arroz meloso" and "caldoso," "arroz al horno," and "pimientos rellenos" (or stuffed peppers).

Within the "paella" dish spectrum, the most famous variations are:

• "de pollo y conejo" (chicken and rabbit) also called "la paella valenciana" (it sometimes also has "caracoles," or snails)… this is the traditional meat paella [For instructions on how to make it, check out this series of blog entries.]
• "de marisco" (seafood)
• "de verduras" (vegetable paella, which can change with the season, so that in winter, for example, it is nice because it has artichokes hearts).
• "arròs negre" (a rich flavored black paella made with squid ink)
• "a banda" (plain rice cooked in a broth)
• "l'arròs del senyoret" (this is the marisco paella, but with all the shells pealed and removed… thus the name: "rice [prepared] for a lord")

La paella valenciana, as prepared and displayed by my mother-in-law.

But there are many, many more kinds, including some regional twists from towns throughout the Valencian Community. Traditionally, paella is cooked in the "paella" frying pan over an open wood fire ("leña"), though many people cook it at home over a stove flame. There is also a saying that the water in Valencia isn't good for anything except making paella. Indeed, Penelope Casas correctly recounts what most Valencians will tell you, when she writes:

"the local water—dreadful for drinking—seems to have a unique chemical composition that is perfect for rice cookery." — in The Foods and Wines of Spain, p. 174.

Ajoaceite, or "All i oli" in Catalán.

This is why locals say that paella can never taste the same, or as good, as it does in Valencia. (It is very important that you pronounce the double "ll" in paella as a "y" and not an "l" sound... as in "pae-yah.") Be sure to order "ajoaceite," Spain's traditional accompaniment to paella and version of aioli, the typical Mediterranean garlic mayonnaise sauce.

And though they look a lot like paella, the "arroz meloso" and "arroz caldoso" are technically not. These soupier rice dishes are cooked in a slightly deeper pan, the meloso version leaving the rice just slightly moist with caldo (broth), whereas the caldoso is pretty much a rice soup. One truly delicious variation is "arroz meloso con bogavante," which is a soupy rice cooked with a regional lobster.

The classic arroz al horno

Then there is "arroz al horno," also considered an entirely different dish, which is rice cooked in a clay pot (cazuela) in an oven. The most common one has tomato, potato, morcilla (a Spanish blood sausage), garlic, chickpeas, and pork ribs. There are hundreds of variations on this dish, but that is the one you will typically find in restaurants, and I highly recommend it.

Pimiento rellenos, a homemade Valencian staple

And finally there is "pimiento relleno," which is a thick juicy local red pepper stuffed and baked with Valencian rice. This dish is tricky to find in restaurants, but is really delicious, so keep an eye out for it.  The two typical ones are: "de bacalao" (cod), and "de carne" (with ground pork).

The best place to eat paella is naturally at your mom or mother-in-law's house. But if you can't get invited to a local's home, there are other remedies. One is to attend one of the many paella street festivals in the region throughout the year. But in terms of restaurants, for die-hard, true lovers of paella, _the_ place to eat it is El Palmar, a pueblo south of the city and right next to the Albufera lake where the special "arroz de Valencia" rice is grown. Most if not all the "arrocerías" (rice restaurants) there will serve excellent paella, though one that is particularly nice is called Nou Racó (previously El Racó del L'Olla), which has a strong international reputation and is located right on the lake.

A nighttime view of Nou Racó taken from the Albufera lake

The Albufera Park is itself worth a visit (and perhaps a future blog entry). You can reserve a complete visit to the Nou Racó restaurant where you take a ride on one of the shallow (gondola-like) boats over the lake, visit the museum which talks about the park (the largest bird migration spot in southern Europe), and most importantly, have lunch at the restaurant Nou Racó. However, this paella mecca requires either taking a bus or taxi, or having a car.

Arroz caldoso de bogavante

An alternative, also quite nice if you can't get out of the city, would be to go to La Riuà located in the city center (C/ del Mar, 27, 46003 Valencia), which is highly rated by locals. For exquisite arroz meloso, my favorite arrocería is L'Altell (Calle Vinaroz, Avenida Primado Reig, 46020 Valencia). And if it is just more convenient, there is always Hemingway's La Pepica, or La Marcelina another arrocería right next to it. Both have the advantage of being right at the beach, ready to serve lunches on those days you want to tour around the recently renovated port area or lay out on the "Las Arenas" (the sands) city beach. Though I've been told by locals that L'Estimat, another arrocería right there on the beach, makes a better quality paella than the other two heavily-frequented-by-tourists spots.

Oh, and one final piece of advice. People here _always_ have these rice dishes for lunch, _never_ for dinner. It actually struck my wife as odd when one of our visitors once asked if we could do a paella for dinner. Just something to keep in mind.