Paella Valenciana

Ingredients

• 500g bomba or senia short-grain rice
• 700g rabbit, jointed into small pieces
• 700g bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks, cut into small pieces
• 200g flat green beans (ferradura or romano), topped and cut into 5cm lengths
• 150g dried garrofo or large lima beans, soaked overnight
• 2 ripe tomatoes, halved and coarsely grated to a pulp
• 1 tbsp sweet pimenton
• 1 generous pinch saffron threads (about 0.3g)
• 150ml olive oil
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1.7 litres water
• Salt

Before you cook

• Soak the garrofo beans in plenty of cold water overnight, then drain them.
• Joint the rabbit and chicken into pieces roughly the size of a matchbox and pat them dry.
• Season all the meat generously with salt and leave it at room temperature for 20 minutes.
• Top and tail the flat green beans and cut them into 5cm lengths.
• Halve the tomatoes and grate the cut sides on a box grater, discarding the skins.
• Toast the saffron threads briefly in a dry spoon held over a low flame, then crumble them into a small cup with a splash of warm water.
• Set a 46cm paella pan across two burners if you have one, or use the widest shallow pan you own.

Steps

1. Pour the olive oil into the paella pan and set it over medium-high heat.
2. Add the rabbit and chicken pieces in a single layer around the pan.
3. Fry the meat for 18 to 20 minutes, turning the pieces every few minutes, until every side is deep golden brown.
4. Push the browned meat out to the rim of the pan to make space in the middle.
5. Tip the flat green beans into the centre and fry them for 5 minutes until they blister and lose their squeak.
6. Add the drained garrofo beans and stir them through for 1 minute.
7. Push all the vegetables out to the rim and pour the grated tomato into the bare centre.
8. Cook the tomato for 5 minutes, stirring, until it darkens and stops smelling raw.
9. Take the pan off the heat and scatter in the sweet pimenton.
10. Stir the pimenton through for 20 seconds only, then return the pan to the heat before it catches.
11. Pour in the water until it reaches the rivets on the pan handles, about 1.7 litres.
12. Bring the pan to a boil and add the saffron with its soaking water plus the rosemary sprig.
13. Simmer briskly for 25 minutes so the broth reduces and takes on colour.
14. Fish out the rosemary sprig and discard it.
15. Taste the broth and add salt until it tastes slightly too salty, because the rice will absorb it.
16. Scatter the rice evenly across the whole surface of the pan in a wide cross, then rake it level.
17. Do not stir the pan again from this point on.
18. Boil hard for 10 minutes, turning the pan on the burner every few minutes so it cooks evenly.
19. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cook for 8 more minutes until the liquid has almost gone.
20. Raise the heat to high for 90 seconds and listen for a faint crackling, which is the socarrat forming on the base.
21. Pull the pan off the heat the moment you smell toast rather than smoke.
22. Cover the pan loosely with a clean tea towel and rest it for 8 minutes before serving straight from the pan.