Other places in Spain
Aragón
Balearic Islands
Canary Islands - Canaries
Castile-La Mancha
Castilla y Leon
Costa Azahar - Valencia
Costa Blanca - Alicante
Costa Brava - Barcelona
Costa Brava - Girona
Costa Calida - Murcia
Costa de Almeria - Almeria
Costa de la Luz - Cadiz
Costa de la Luz - Huelva
Costa del Sol - Andalucia
Costa Dorada - Tarragona
Costa Tropical - Granada
Extremadura
Madrid Area
Northern Andalucia
In search of the perfect paella
From the Daily Mail
There is only one meal that makes a trip to Spain complete: paella. As far as the British are concerned, this mixture of rice, chicken and seafood, with the odd bit of veg thrown in, is Spain's national dish.
But in a land where regional gastronomy is taken very seriously, Spaniards wring their hands at this notion.
For true paella comes from Valencia - everything else is just rice.
Paella is by no means a fast food. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes to cook one properly. So I went to Valencia to discover its secrets.
Outside Spain's third-largest city is La Albufera, a freshwater lake which is now part of a national park.
Here, at the end of the 7th century, the Moors introduced irrigation to cultivate Spain's first rice paddies.
Today, they cover a vast area of this coastal plain, stretching 35 kilometres south of the city.
'This is the place where paella was born,' said my guide Juan Llantada.
'When the farmers stopped working the fields for their midday meal, they added whatever they had to the rice - rabbit, duck, snails and green beans.'
Today, there are more than 300 varieties of paella - pronounced 'pah-ay-yah' - which is actually the name of the shallow pan in which it is cooked.
Read more in our destination guide to Spain.