Here's how I do it, using a 45 cm cast iron paellera on the stove top or barbecue. NEVER in the oven, which tends to leave underdone rice at the edges of the pan. This is for four/five people. The basic idea is blending flavours from sky, sea and earth. T
1) Splash of olive oil in hot pan, add fistfuls of chopped sweet pepper, tomato, onion, I clove garlic, eight small cubes of ham. Season with salt and pepper.
2) Fry until this sofrito begins to feel pasty.
3) Add four pre-browned chicken breasts, half a pre-fried chorizo cut into disks and three cups of long-grain rice.
4) Add a small pinch of saffron which has been sitting in a cup of boiling water (or use the yellow "color" bought from a Spanish grocery.
5) Fill pan with boiling water and stir. Add cuts of fish, a handful of shrimp, maybe some clams. Keep eight deveined fried prawns and eight black mussels in readiness, as the boiling water reduces.
6) When the rice begins to show, give a final stir, stick the open mussels into the rice vertically, lay on the prawns, and sprinkle with a handful of green garden peas.
7)When you hear the crackle of rice charring in the bottom of the pan, remove from heat, cover with a clean dishcloth and let the paella "rest" for 10 minutes. Then serve from the pan, with juicy lemon segments to squeeze over individual plates. The recipe is from Cullera, south of Valencia, circa 1966.
Try this out -- if it's no good, too bad. Pay if the recipe works professionally.