Paella tips and help please 🙏

[LadyofRutshire]

I am planning on taking a great leap out of my comfort zone and making Paella tonight for dinner. I've had a Google and found one of Jamie's that I like the look of https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/rice/chicken-chorizo-paella/

I've never made Paella before as it's a dish that scares me. It looks complicated and easy to mess up. I can't make rice use the boil in the bags.

Do any of you lovely lot have any advice/help/tips/recipes which will help me make a fantastic Paella dish for dinner and surprise my troops

We make paella frequently. It’s not difficult but requires constant attention while it’s cooking , a bit like risotto.
make sure you’re using a proper big paella pan. I have to use three gas burners on our hob to cook it evenly as one burner would only cook the middle of the pan. Keep it on a low heat and mix frequently.
Use proper paella rice. Add the rice without liquid first - fry it for about two minutes so it absorbs all the flavours and spices from the pan , then add liquid.

keep adding liquid when it looks too dry. I cover the pan with tin foil to ensure the liquid is not escaping ( I don’t have a lid big enough so tin foil replaces the lid).
A nice addition to our paella is to put a lot of baby corn on top of the rice and let it steam cook under the tin foil for about 15 minutes.
good luck

Oh and I also spin/ rotate the pan as even with three gas burners I find that different parts of the pan cook at different speed.

I make this recipe loads - in fact it's on the list for this week! For personal taste I do make amendments but the basic recipe is really easy. It doesn't need any special care beyond what the recipe tells you to do.

I've made it in both a large straight sided frying pan (it's not a frying pan - more like a wide shadow saucepan if that makes sense) and also in a deeper casserole type pan. Works in both.

Thanks everyone. I made the Paella last night and we all enjoyed it and said we would have it again. The recipe said its for 4 people, I halved the ingredients and it was still was enough for 4 of us.

I don't have a Paella pan (I've put one on my Christmas list) so used a frying pan and it worked well.