Types of Paella

Are you familiar with paellas? How many types of them do you know? Would you add snails and rabbit to a paella?


Paella is the Mediterranean dish, originated in Valencia and spread throughout all the Mediterranean coast.
There are three major types of paella: Valencian paella, seafood paella and mixed paella, but there are many others as well.
Valencian paella consists of white rice, green vegetables, meat (rabbit, chicken, land snails), beans and seasoning.
Seafood paella replaces land animals with seafood and omits beans and green vegetables, maybe just some red pepper and onions.
Mixed paella is a free-style combination of land animals, seafood, vegetables, and sometimes beans.
But there are some special tricks that made the Mediterranean paellas special from any others... Most paella chefs use bomba rice for this dish, a rounded rice grain. Other key ingredients include saffron and virgin olive oil.

One of the most spectacular paellas is the one called Black rice or arròs negre. It is a dish made with cuttlefish (or squid) and rice, somewhat similar to seafood paella.
The traditional recipe for this dish calls for squid ink, cuttlefish or squid, white rice, garlic, green cubanelle peppers, sweet paprika, olive oil and seafood broth.
The dish's dark color comes from squid ink which also enhances its seafood flavor.

Another type of Mediterranean rice dish is the so-called Arròs a banda, which shouldn't be considered a paella per se, it's base is the same. The exact translation would be rice on the side, which means that first you cook the rice with the fish broth and then you use it as a side for the main fish dish. All of it with a very rich sea flavor.

You can check here some of the different types of paella that Sandra Martinetto tried in her last trip to the Mediterranean sea, Barcelona. See pictures >>