Bomba rice recipes: the pride of Spain All these dishes are made with the characteristic medium-grain rices of Spain, which are shorter than Indian basmati and longer than the type used for Japanese sushi. This autumn Linton went to see one of her two main rice suppliers, Juan Trías del Romero of Illa de Riu, at his 2,000-acre farm in the Ebro Delta, two hours" drive south of Barcelona. Trías is slender as a grain, with a neat chalk-white beard and, in the field, wears a sun-bleached hat. The youngest of seven brothers and twin sisters, he was instructed by his father to run the family farm after studying economics at university. Now aged 60, Trías supplies some of the top Spanish restaurants in the world, including El Celler de Can Roca, Mugaritz and Arzak. He also sold to El Bulli before Ferran Adrià closed it last year. Over lunch in a local restaurant, whose menu features four pages of rice dishes, Trías tells the story of a particular variety called bomba, a small, round grain dating from the 19th century, which has become the cult rice of the region and is now at the heart of the business. "Bomba is very old but it's very good," Trías says. For us it's the best variety. When I was a child, a very large section of the rice was bomba. But other kinds became more popular and it almost disappeared. With its long stalk, bomba can blow over and be laid waste by bad weather. At best, Trías says, it is half as productive as his more commercial varieties. From the 1960s, production plummeted. By the early 1990s, the family grew only a small area for themselves. Then bomba was rediscovered by the Mediterranean Spanish, with their sophisticated rice culture. They love both its flavour and the way the grains can absorb a large amount of stock without overcooking. An industrialist heard that Trías was growing bomba privately and asked him to produce more. Within a few years, production had increased to 500 tons a year. At this point the businessman stopped buying - the price was too high. Trías created his own brand and has never looked back. The rice dish we eat in the restaurant, arroz a banda ("rice on the side"), is made with Trías's bomba, and is a revelation. Fish and potatoes, cooked in fish stock, are served first. Then comes the rice, given pride of place on the plate: pure, simple and each grain plump with the tasty stock. The next day Linton and Trías go out to his rice fields to meet Josep Carbonell, a 40-year-old Catalan who has worked in London since 1997 and now oversees the Brindisa Tapas Kitchens restaurants, including Tramontana. The rice crop starts off fresh and green in spring, like wheat, then by harvest time turns to a golden ochre with a touch of green. Carbonell weighs a stalk in his hand, admiring its heaviness. Trías's bomba is wonderful to cook with, he says. The grains can increase in size by three or four times. They hold all the stock and the juices from the vegetables and fish that you are cooking in the same pot. The taste is amazing. Trías's farm stretches four miles along the River Ebro to the sea. The rice plants are grown underwater; the land is drained after the autumn harvest and filled with water again in spring. The water level is controlled through sluice gates, and Trías talks to the water engineers in charge at least a couple of times a day. "The only way to control the salt is with good, sweet water," he says. Some of the equipment is hi-tech. Laser technology ensures the fields are level and the water spreads evenly. After harvesting, the rice is milled at the local co-operative plant, the chaff used as chippings for riding schools, biofuel and judo mats. At Trías's farm the rice is dried from 25 per cent moisture to 14-15 per cent so that it can be stored and rehydrated in cooking. Vast piles sit like sand dunes, giving off an elemental, nourishing aroma. The rice is sent to the local co-operative's mill, where the brown coating is polished off and it is put into Illa de Riu packaging. Every grain matters - and here are billions of them. The company grows its own seed, selected through a breeding programme. "It's only for me," Trías says, when he shows Linton the room full of seed rice that is effectively the bank vault of his business. When we discovered that our bomba was different to others, we closed the door. Illa de Riu bomba can cost twice as much as lesser-quality brands (a 1kg bag sold by Brindisa costs £7), but people are prepared to pay the price because of its taste and consistency, which means each grain cooks at the same rate. Back in Shoreditch, the head chef at Tramontana, Alberto Torres, uses Illa de Riu bomba in his authentic rice dishes. He uses Trías's carnaroli, another medium-grain rice, for creamy dishes, as the starch dissolves a little more. A third high-quality rice is also used, calasparra, from the Co-operative of the Virgin of Hope in Murcia, where the irrigation systems go back to the days of the Moors. "For years in Brindisa, I have heard colleagues and suppliers reminisce about the amazing rice dishes they've eaten and how one kind of rice is great and another is just OK," Linton says. I wanted to find out more about the differences and why certain rice is more valued than others. I love how you can vary rice recipes according to the seasons and the geography of a place - game, meat, fish, snails, vegetable, mushrooms and so on. There are so many subtleties in what seems like such a simple food. Tramontana Brindisa, 152 Curtain Road, London EC2 (020-7749 9961; brindisa.com)