Rice country: rice cooked dry in wide pans, soupy in pots and baked in the oven, beside the oranges, almonds, tiger nuts and turrón of Spain's orchard coast.
Where it comes from
Rice has been grown in the marshes around the Albufera lagoon since the time of al-Andalus, and the irrigation channels of the huerta — the market gardens around Valencia — are usually traced to the same centuries. The city's water court still meets outside the cathedral every Thursday.
Out of that came a kitchen that cooks rice every way it can: dry in the paella, soupy in a pot, baked in an earthenware dish, black with ink. Each town has its own, and its own rules about it.
The orchards gave the rest — oranges, almonds, and the tiger nuts pressed into orxata — and in the south, around Alicante, the almond-and-honey turrón eaten all over Spain at Christmas.
Where in it
Valencia and the AlbuferaThe city, its huerta and the rice fields of the Albufera lagoon to the south — home of paella and of eels in all i pebre — with orxata poured in Alboraia, just to the north.Paella valencianaAll i pebreOrxata de xufaArròs al forn
Gandia and La SaforA fishing port south of Valencia, where fideuà is said to have been first cooked on board a boat, and where the town holds a contest for it every year.Fideuà
Alicante and XixonaThe southern coast of rice cooked in fish stock — arròs a banda, arròs negre — with the turrón makers of Xixona in the hills behind.Arròs negreTurrón
Castellón and the MaestratThe northern plain of orange groves, a coast known for the prawns of Vinaròs, and mountains inland with truffles and cured meats.
How it cooks
Paella over wood
A wide pan over a fire of orange or vine prunings, so the heat spreads right across — then a last blast of heat for the socarrat.
Sec, melós, caldós
Dry, creamy or soupy: the same rice becomes a different dish depending on how much stock it's given.
Al forn
Rice baked in a wide earthenware cassola, cooked through by the heat around it and never stirred.
Stock first
For seafood rice the fish stock is made first and made strong — the rice takes all its flavour from it.
Allioli on the side
Black rice, fideuà and arròs a banda come with garlic sauce to stir in at the table.
Moorish Spain · from Baghdad to ValenciaRice, saffron and almondsUnder Moorish rule, rice, saffron and almonds took root in al-Andalus, and the rice fields around Valencia's Albufera go back to that time. Paella itself came much later, in the nineteenth century — but not without them.Paella valenciana →