Ina Garten’s Been Cooking Paella, And It Made Us Hungry

Rice, vegetables, protein, seasonings. A holy quartet that basically never goes wrong, and countless culinary cultures around the world have their own version. Paella is up there with the best. The Spanish dish comes alive in the summer, especially when you cook it like our favorite TV chef and personality, Ina Garten, does: In a huge paella dish on a stove in the garden, so you can enjoy nature while your mussels, shrimp, and rice simmer away. 

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Garten reminded us that this is probably the best way to cook paella in a recent Instagram post, and it sent us down a little bit of a rabbit hole on the dish itself and its origins. And we wanna talk about it. 

What’s Cooking, Ina?

Our renewed interest in paella stemmed from an Insta post Garten put up last week, in which she showed her ample social media audience of five million followers how she makes hers. Never one to do things inauthentically, she uses a classic, wide, flat paella pan (which is simply called a paella or, in modern Spanish, a paellera), and throws in a combination of chicken, sausage, seafood, peas, and red peppers, which she simmers outside her barn – although we’ll touch on some of those ingredients in a moment. “There’s nothing better than cooking outside in the summer,” she said in the caption of the post. You know what? We agree.

That’s the traditional way to make it, too. Paella originates from the València region of Spain, and more specifically, in the rural area that surrounds Albufera de València. Although forms of paella have existed for hundreds of years, the modern version that most of us recognise gained popularity in the mid-19th century. The traditional version of paella, Paella Valenciana, contains ingredients like chicken, rabbit, snails, duck, runner beans, navy beans, garlic, paprika, and rosemary. The inclusion of seafood in traditional paella can sometimes be controversial: Some Valencians state that it should never be included in the dish, while those in towns on the Valencian coast base their paellas around it. The flat, wide pan is perhaps one of the most important aspects, though: Without it, the Bomba rice used in the dish will never develop that gorgeously chewy crust on the bottom. 

A Transformed Classic

Over time, paella, like so many foods, has become almost a culinary playground – and it can be served in some fun ways. Chef Natalia Rudakova, for example, combines paella and tapas, serving the dish in a tuile basket with tomato flakes peppered on top. It’s a great example of how paella can be turned into something completely different – but the glory of this dish is so often in its traditional nature. Thanks for reminding us of it, Ina. I’m hungry now.