Baked Rice with Black Sausage and Valencian Meatballs

For this prize-winning recipe—a stunning winter rice dish of meatballs, pork ribs, black sausage, potatoes, and chickpeas—I must thank Bertha Gilberta Ivañez, the cook at the Hosteria del Montsant in Jativa near Valencia.

“On Sundays, when I was growing up,” Bertha told me, “we would take this rice dish to the baker's oven before attending mass. You don't need to serve anything else, just a salad. And it's even better the next day, served at room temperature or reheated over boiling