The Ultimate Paella

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This is not Per se an easy recipe. I bought a 17" paella pan from sur la table and it wasn't big enough. My food was so crowded. And very hard to do on an electric stove. Next time I am going to try it on the grill like someone else suggested and cut back the rice. That being said, it was awesome!! I did bloom the saffron in chicken stock and deglazed the pan with white wine before adding the rice. The flavors were awesome!! Last night was a trial run for Easter..... Hope I can make a couple of tweaks and have a successful Easter dinner.

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I've made this twice, and followed the recipe exactly. Both times it has turned out wonderful. I bought a paella pan from Sur la Table (20 inch I think. I can't imagine trying to cook this in any other pan. I cook it on the grill (on high the entire time, with a handful of hickory chips wrapped in foil and it has the most amazing flavor. I also use chicken stock and add the saffron to it in advance.

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Wish I had read some of the other reviews BEFORE investing in this dish.

My pan was too small for all the ingredients noted, and the rice (medium grain did not absorb well. Nothing like crunchy rice.

Will make again, using HALF the required measurements, and will also use SHORT grain Sapnish rice!!!!!!!

Expensive to make, will try again around the Easter holiday season.

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I've used this recipe several times, but it really only worked beautifully when I invested in a $25 fifteen-inch paella pan and knocked the rice down to 1.5 cups and use 4 cups of liquid. You really have to cut the rice down that much. Authentic paella recipes only use that much rice in huge paella pans like Tyler had in his video.
I simmered my saffron in clam juice and chicken stock before adding it to the rice. The secret to great paella is not filling the pan with too much stuff. I used 3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into pieces, 12 large prawns, 6 scallops, 12 mussels, 1 chorizo, and 1/4 lb squid and the pan was PACKED. I was really pushing it.
When the rice is cooked this way it is absolutely incredible. I ordered Spanish Bomba rice online. If you can’t get it, kick in a few extra dollars and buy short grained paella rice. DO NOT USE LONG GRAINED RICE. Basmati or Uncle Ben's will ruin this dish; it will come out mushy and will not absorb the flavors.

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I am sorry,but this recipe was a MAJOR disappointment. I do live in high altitude, so maybe this made a difference. I questioned the 4 cups of rice from the get-go, and indeed, there was just a HEAP OF BLAND RICE in proportion to the chicken and seafood. I had to add a lot more water and chicken stock than listed, too. The overall flavor was NOT spicy/exciting, just a bunch of rice with some chicken and seafood. We expected something MUCH more exotic and rich! Bummer!!

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I have been making paella for over 40 years. this one has terrific flavor. I also added the saffron to chicken stock. My only problem was, I doubled the recipe and thought it was too much rice. In fact, I had 1 cut short and used more stock. Any suggestions?

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Newcomers to the paella scene, we have tried several versions from a lot of recommended restaurants in the New England area, and love it. We wanted to make it at home, but knowing the complexity of the preparation we were weary about selecting a recipe to recreate it. I have to say this recipe was pretty foolproof in tackling the most difficult cooking techniques. The moisture to rice ratio was spot on as was the cooking time.

I know from cooking a lot of seafood at home, that clams and mussels dont usually take 15 minutes to open, so we added them at 10 minutes prior to the end time and the shrimp went in after that (equaling the 8 minutes suggested by Tyler Everyone was cooked perfectly by the time we were done.

Only suggestions I would have is to use chicken stock instead of water, and to cook the chicken and pork ahead of time (we always experienced it dry in the restaurants so we cooked it in the presuure cooker and added it after the fact otherwise fantastic!

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This had great flavors and everyone really enjoyed it. I could not find saffron at the store so I bought Sazon Goya with saffron. I put this little packet on both the chicken to marinate ( in addition to oregano, salt, pepper and paprika and in the chicken broth (I used chicken broth like people suggested. I did not have a Paella Pan so I cooked everything in a big pot for the first 15 minutes or so until most of the water was absorbed. To give as much of the paella a crunchy bottom I seperated the paella into two pans and the pot for the last 5 minutes. It was not as completed as it seems and it gave more people the delicious crunch at the bottom. Someone in my family is allergy to seafood so I used the pan I cooked the chorizo and chicken in and sauteed the seafood seperately. When I added the seafood at the end to individual plates it still had some of the paella flavoring.

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The recipe was pretty good, but we did make a few alterations and in the future we'll add more spice. Here's what we did: Substituted 7 cups of chicken broth for 6 cups of water, dropped the lobster tails (because we don't roll like Tyler, and bloomed the saffron in the broth before adding it to the recipe.
In the end, the recipe took a little longer to cook than we expected and turned out blander than we expected. These, however, are all things that can be fixed the next time around.

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I must say that I cook as a hobby and have a pretty good idea when I see a recipe of how it's going to taste by the list of ingredients. This is a very good start on the ingredients but I will detail my version of this Paella, I used 6 of the very largest colossal langostinos I could find here in Atlanta. I did use all of the other shellfish specified.

Since I was making Panamanian ceviche for appetizer I used flounder for that so I had the fish monger filet the flounder and used the bones to make the stock that I would use for the paella. I used smoked paprika, smoked red peppers in the jar and fresh green beans a couple of handfuls and fresh green peas to make it as fresh as possible.

I browned the chicken and vegetables as I was assembling the components on the stove. I did use the kettle grill instead of the oven with charcoal and wood chips to do the final rice cooking to give it that smoky authentic flavor. My My My, what a delicacy. It was delicious.