subject: Paella And Why To Leave Home For A Taste Of Holiday Villas In Valencia [print this page] This has got to be the best way of sampling a traditional dish in an authentic way if you cannot go on your HOLIDAY VILLAS IN VALENCIA. Use the top of the stove when making paella: some people use the oven but if you are going to be authentic then it is best that you get yourself a paella pan. No, the truth is if you want an authentic dish you do need to go to Valencia.
This peasant dish was invented there and has been a favourite for just over a century, ever since a blundering journalist discovered some local farmers making a strange dish made up of rice and whatever other ingredients they could find running freely in the wild. When he asked what they were making, which included ingredients such as snails and rats, he was told "paella". This really every Valencian knows is what they call the pan in the local Valencian dialect, referring to any of the cooking utensils in the Valencian kitchen.
Despite the many variations of paella it cannot be considered paella if the three main ingredients are not included: these are rice, olive oil and either meat, fish or vegetables or even any combination of the above. You could add whatever kinds of meat, vegetables and seafood you wanted to the dish: in fact it's how it traditionally was cooked. First the meat or fish is fried in oil, rice is added and then water bringing the whole mixture to the boil. Once the rice is soft and flaky the pan is left to absorb the remainder of the liquid. It is eaten while still hot is best but just as good cold as a side dish or salad.
There really is no telling where the dish original came from. Some have said that it is what the servants in the Muslim households would mix together after there had been some kind of gathering at the homes. Whatever food that had been left over would be mixed together with rice and fried or boiled together, which sounds reasonable when you consider the Muslims lived in this part of the world for seven centuries.
Other still insist it was just something pulled together by the peasant farmers around Valencia, especially during harvest times when great parties of them would be out in the fields working. Considering how poor they were, if they had anything like beef to cook it would be a rich man's festival.
This is where the paella festivals stem from. In most of the towns in and around the region of Valencia there are occasions when the locals will get together and party: a huge paella pan would be bought in for the occasion and the largest paella possible cooked to the delight of the waiting partygoers. However it all started, does it really matter if you want a taste of Valencia you can certainly do that in your own kitchen without ever having to go to your HOLIDAY VILLAS IN VALENCIA? Providing you use the traditional ingredients, of course.
