This, mis amigos, is a true Spanish paella. The photo above was taken in a restaurant two friends I visited on a weekend trip to Valencia, a large city on the eastern coast of Spain, during my semester abroad there. This has to be one of the best meals I ate in the country–paella valenciana is renowned for its authenticity, even though you can get paella in mostly every Spanish cafe or restaurant.
(Paella is one of the most typically “Spanish” dishes. It’s almost like a giant casserole, made with saffron-infused rice and any number of added ingredients. Seafood paellas will include mussels, clams, calamari, shrimp, and prawns. Mixed paellas will have some seafood elements as well as chicken or rabbit. And vegetarian paellas have peppers, snap peas, and other yummy legumes.)
I was doing a bit of reminiscing about my time in Europe this weekend, so I decided to share with you a recipe I inherited while I was there!
