How to prevent your paella from bulging

If there is something that every buyer wants, it is for the products they buy to last as long as possible. The paella pan, in practice, has an indefinite use, but we have already seen cases of clients and colleagues who tell us that their paella has bulged or warped during use.

Believe it or not, avoiding this accident is easier than it seems, but to do so you need to know how and why to avoid a bulging paella.

What causes paella pan to bulge?

100% of the material used to make a paella is steel, steel is malleable in two ways: on the one hand, iron can be molded with presses, this is how a paella is made, from a steel coil that It is unfolded and passed through the press, which gives it the characteristic truncated conical shape of the paella.

The second way is due to excess temperature, the melting temperature of iron is around 1400 degrees Celsius, but with lower temperatures we can lose the original manufacturing structure.

Thus, the main reason for a paella to bend is excess temperature. It also influences that over the years paella manufacturers have tried to make more efficient and economical products that are fully functional, but far from the qualities and weights that paellas had 20 years ago. All of this makes it essential to know how to cook paella correctly to avoid ending up with a bent paella.

The most sensitive moments for a paella to fold are those in which the iron can reach a higher temperature, these moments coincide with the initial stages of cooking:

- Leveling the paella, everyone knows the importance of a good leveling of the paella before starting the cooking process. This leveling becomes especially important the thinner the layer of rice in the paella, as it is more noticeable since the metal of the paella can be seen.

Leveling is essential to do with the heat off, since otherwise the metal of the paella will reach very high temperatures since, at this moment, being without ingredients, the heat is retained only by the metal, which is why it is the most delicate moment where an unwanted folding of the paella can occur.

- Sautéing the paella, is a fundamental process, the oil is the vehicle for the fat-soluble components, these are those that come from the meats and to make the most of the flavors of the meats it is essential to cook them over medium or low heat, this It will cause the fats from the meat to dissolve in our oil. Once the sautéing process is finished, we will add the water. As everyone knows, the oil will float on top of the water and when the water evaporates and is absorbed by the rice, this layer of superficial oil will descend, covering the rice grains and giving it the tasty palatability characteristic of paella.

Also influencing is the fact that this process is carried out only with the internal fire on, this allows the pieces to be removed from the edges as they are sautéed, lighting all the burner lights will produce excess temperature and increase the chances of doubling a paella.

From all this, it can be deduced that it is essential to make a good stir-fry “poc a poc i amb bona lletra” (slowly and with good writing) and the construction of today's paellas is based on this. What can happen if I use a high heat during the stir-fry? Since there is no water at this stage, the temperature reached by the iron will be very high, so in the long run the paella will end up bending, due to the excess temperature of the iron.

It is curious that, sometimes when water is added during the paella cooking process, the iron “relaxes” and returns to its original shape. This occurs due to the drastic drop in temperature of the iron that occurs when water at room temperature is added. This is a false arrangement, because once the paella has lost the turgidity that its design gives it, although when the metal relaxes it returns to its original position, the truth is that when we make the sauce again, in all probability, it will bend again .

It is important to know that in the stages of cooking the paella where there is water or broth, the steel of the paella will not suffer, since the water boils at relatively low temperatures (100 ºC) and even if we increase the intensity of the fire this translates into greater evaporation but the temperature never exceeds 100 ºC, from this it also follows that in these stages working with intense heat does not pose any risk to the paella, images like the one in this entry are very spectacular and although it may not seem like it, they do not represent a risk to the integrity of the paella.

What if I use a wood fire?

The wood fire is how paella was originally made and provides a special flavor, highly valued by authentic paella gourmets. This wood fire is more difficult to control than the gas fire and, above all, it can become much more powerful, so the risk of folding or folding a paella pan is much greater as it is much easier to reach the excess temperature that makes iron malleable.

The precautions and advice are similar to those discussed with gas fires but in this case it is especially important to consider purchasing a paella of special or professional thickness or also called pata negra, these paellas are manufactured for intensive and professional use and are characterized by a greater thickness of its iron sheet and the resulting increase in weight, that is, these paella pans are reinforced, are much more resistant and are suitable for intense fires such as a wood fire and for intensive uses such as those in a restaurant.

What if I use an induction or ceramic hob?

Induction or glass-ceramic fires are more aggressive with the steel of our paella, for this reason it is essential to use a paella specially designed for induction and glass-ceramic fires, its differential characteristics are mainly the thickness of the base (thicker than that of a conventional paella) and that are completely flat to be able to come into contact with the entire surface of our induction and ceramic hob.

However, these paellas are not exempt from ending up collapsing, although the reasons are the common ones caused by excess temperature.

How to prevent your paella pan from bulging

From everything explained above we can conclude with a series of basic and simple tips that will ensure that our paellas can be inherited by our descendants:

1- Leveling the paella is always done with the heat off
2- Sautéing should be done over medium or low heat, with patience
3- Sautéing must be done only with the internal fire
4- The intense heat is reserved exclusively for the stages where there is water or broth in the paella.
5- If you cook over a wood fire or you like intense fires, your paella is the especially thick one.

Does this work with all types of paella pans?

These recommendations that we give you work with all paella pans, after all, they are all made with steel, be it a polished paella pan, enameled paella pan, stainless steel paella pan, an induction paella pan or even a multi-taste paella pan.

Any extra advice?

If you want a couple of extra tips, we recommend the following:

- The approved gas regulator (also called artichoke) works between 28/30 mbar for butane gas. We know that many customers use more powerful gas regulators, especially for large paellas where that extra power is appreciated. It should be noted that its use It is not regulatory and is synonymous with loss of warranty and the safety conditions for which it was designed. Its use causes the burner to acquire greater power and this makes the risk of excess temperature greater, so extreme care must be taken. precautions and advice with the use of this type of regulators.

- Although it is dangerous to use too much power, it is also dangerous not to provide your paella with adequate firepower. If you are going to make paella outdoors, consider taking a universal windbreak to prevent the air from reducing or extinguishing your flame, and you will also achieve a significant saving in gas consumption, since a correct installation of the windbreak will cause an “oven” effect that guarantees lower gas consumption at the same temperatures.