Step by step

Soak the rice in fresh water so as to remove excess starch

Tips
Leave the rice and potatoes to soak before you use them: if you remove excess starch the final dish will not be too ‘sticky’. Another tip: many recipes recommend that you open raw mussels, but we suggest you don’t do this because only by heating the closed mussels can you tell which are not suitable for eating, i.e. those that do not open must be discarded. If you open them raw you can’t identify those to be thrown out. A final tip: since this recipe requires that the shells are added to the final dish with the other ingredients, it goes without saying that they must be perfectly clean.
Trivia
In some ways, there are similarities between ‘paella’ and this rice, potatoes and mussels combination, known as ‘Tiella’: in both cases the names are derived from the pan in which they are prepared.