Paella is up there with favourite dishes in the Wee Pinch of Sugar kitchen and over the past 30 years or so I’ve owned several but admittedly I never really found the perfect pan. The traditional non expensive pans were never a success and eventually I resorted to using a stainless steel saute pan.
Chef James Martin designed the Lamina’ range of pans for Stellar Cookware and following my review of his recent UK tour, I was offered the chance to review a pan from this top quality range.
The paella pan was the obvious choice.
This range of tri ply cookware has been designed to the chef’s strict tolerances and in terms of outstanding performance and control, it did what it said on the box . The three layers of metal produce a slightly thicker pan and unlike many stainless steel pans the base is not just stuck on to the bottom. This design ensures that the entire pan heats up. Heat radiates up the side of the pan this avoids the problem of food burning on the base of the pan.
I tested the pan by making my usual paella recipe. Much has been written about how to cook the perfect paella and even the Spanish disagree on the best way to cook and what produce should be used although there’s no disagreement over the main ingredient, rice.
It’s also said that a wide pan with a thin base should be used. However, The lamina paella pan is a deeper pan and with the entire pan heating up I found that all the rice cooked consistently and in a shorter time than usual. This also meant that it was ideal for layering up ingredients like the shellfish which was added near the end of cooking. There’s little or no stirring when cooking paella and with previous pans I often found the rice didn’t cook evenly without moving or stirring the pan. Being oven safe it gives the option of finishing the dish in the oven.
The paella pan is 28cm which is the ideal size for the largest zone of my induction hob.
The Lamina range is suitable for all hob types. All are dishwasher and oven safe and come with the Stellar Cookware lifetime guarantee.
Included in the range are saucepans in a selection of sizes, frying pans, stockpot, sautee pan, saucier, a wok and of course the paella pan featured in this review.
The paella pan is currently on sale at £68.
Coming soon. Watch out for the paella recipe used to to test this pan.
Stellar Cookware provided the pan for this review. All opinions expressed are my own.