Like “pot noodles” and “daepo,” cooking utensils or bowls often harden under the name of food. The same is true of Spain’s Paella. Paella originally refers to a round and flat frying pan, but it has become more widely known as a Spanish-style rice dish made by adding seafood, meat, and vegetables to rice.
Paella is also considered to be the origin of the Balencia region along the Mediterranean Sea in Spain. Spain is the “second largest rice producer” in Europe after Italy. Southern Valencia, where there is a large lake called Albufera, is a granary where rice farming is developed. Paella was a new vegetable that local farmers used to make from ingredients that were easily available in the fields such as rabbit meat, snail, stem beans, and white kidney beans.
In Spain, there are as many kinds of paella as Korean kimchi. There is a cookbook containing 108 recipes of paella alone, and like kimchi, each house has a different recipe and ingredients. Among them, Paya Valenciana, a representative example, contains vegetables in rabbit meat or chicken. Paella de Verduras contains only vegetables, Paella Marinera contains seafood, and Paella Mixta contains both meat and seafood, as the name suggests.
Paaya Negra is a blackened rice color with squid ink, and Paaya Pideus is made of pasta instead of rice.
There are various types of paella, but the recipe is similar. Put paella on fire and put olive oil on it. Stir-fry main ingredients such as meat and fish, and when it turns golden, add vegetables such as bell peppers and beans, and pour chicken broth or seafood broth. The Balencians, who are proud of their aid to Paella, say that Paella built on firewood is the best. It is often made of orange trees, and it is argued that it is a proper paella only when the scent of firewood permeates the rice grains.
When the broth in the paella pot boils down and the ingredients are cooked, add rice, pour the broth again, and season. At this time, saffron is often added. The saffron is a pistil of iris and flower that grows along the Mediterranean coast. It has a slightly spicy taste and a unique scent, and above all, it is a spice used to color the food yellow. When it comes to paella, saffron is used so often that it reminds you of gold.
Rice absorbs all the broth and boils when it is cooked. Paella, which has been steamed well, can be put on fire again or increase the firepower to make the floor pile up. Just as people like nurungji in Korea, Spanish people consider paella nurungji called “socarat” as a delicacy.
When the paella is completed, it is placed in the middle of the table without removing it, and the whole family sits around it and eats it with a wooden spoon. It is a rare sight to see in Europe where all foods are eaten one serving at a time. Sharing food on a large plate is an Islamic or Middle Eastern eating habit. Muslim rulers, who dominated the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of years, including Spain, delivered their eating habits and cultivation techniques. In Spain, which is recognized as the world’s most devout Catholic country, paella is the food that can still taste the influence of Islam.