[jyl]

The crust is called the socccarat and it is important, the delicacy in the dish. You can monitor the crust forming by poking a chopstick into the rice and feeling, or by smelling for the faint odor of toasting rice.

Most traditional paella is rabbit, snails and green beans. It started as a poor peasant's dish, meat was what they could get. The fancy paellas came later.

My process:
- Stack wood, build a hot fire, place paella on it, the thin steel pan will get really hot really fast
- squirt olive oil (beware of flashback/ignition), throw meat on, brown it fast, remove, then your aromatics (sofrito = chopped onion garlic tomato peppers etc and saffron), then your beans, I always fry up some chorizo. Everything gets browned and removed. You'll need mitts and long tongs or your arms will burn
- By now, fire has diminished a bit. In the pan with all the oil and chorizo juice, brown the rice, add back the aromatics, chorizo, salt & pepper, mix and smooth everything out, add a couple cups of stock
- arrange meat and beans, keep adding stock as it boils off and is absorbed, the fire will continue mellowing and the rice will get to cook gradually
- when the rice is done, stop adding stock and let the dish cook dry, smell for the toasting rice, when the crust is nice, take pan off fire and put it on the table
- everyone digs in and fights over the soccarat, ideally lots of drinking and maybe a duel or girls catfighting, the whole village party thing

The pan now looks like hell, all sooty and burned black. But you bought the cheap pan so you're not devastated. Wipe it with some oil, wrap in newspaper, and throw in the garage for next time.