Cooking Paella in the Proper Order

• Making paella involves following a specific order of steps to get the maximum amount of flavor from the rice. Because the rice must cook in the broth that is created by separately cooking the meats, vegetables and seasonings that will go into the paella, you can't make it first. These ingredients must also cook along with the rice to meld these flavors together and into the rice grains. Making the rice separately will mean that it won't absorb any flavors. The already-cooked rice will also become overcooked and dry if you try to heat it up along with the meats, vegetables and seafood that you add to it.

Putting Things Together

• Paella is made by using a shallow pan to cook all the ingredients. The first step of creating any paella is to pan-fry the meats, seafood and vegetables in oil using the paella pan. You'll then put these ingredients aside to use the pan to cook up a combination of aromatic ingredients including tomato, garlic, onion and oil, known as a sofrito. Add the rice to coat it with oil and pour some chicken or seafood stock into the pan containing the sofrito, which will deglaze the pan. Sprinkle in herbs and spices to the broth, along with some saffron and then add in the cooked meats, seafood and vegetables.

A Little of This and a Little of That

• Once your rice, stock, meats, sofrito, seafood and vegetables are all in the shallow pan, you'll cook them until the stock is absorbed completely into the rice. You'll use only a small layer of rice to ensure that it cooks to an al dente texture and also develops a bit of a toasty crust known as a "socarrat." Typically, the rice takes around 20 minutes to cook when heated at a simmer over the stove. Cover the pan with foil for about 10 minutes after the liquid has cooked away to fully allow all the flavors to meld into the rice, which is really the star of this dish.

Cooking Things Separately to Save Time

• You can only cook your meats or seafood separately from your other paella ingredients to save some time in preparing this dish. Store and reheat these ingredients in the paella pan the next day, after refrigerating them, before creating your sofrito, and adding in your rice and broth. This will still allow the rice to absorb the other flavors and will speed up the cooking process a bit. For best results, cook all your ingredients on the same day and use a short-grain rice to make your paella. Short-grain rice absorbs the liquid and flavors better than long-grain rice, and stays a bit more firm as well.