Fideuá is a seafood dish and close relative of the world famous paella. This dish also originates from the coast of Valencia but it is made with fideo pasta instead of rice. For this dish, you can use a variety of different pastas depending on your preferences, such as spaghetti, vermicelli or angel hair pasta (capellini). Break the dry pasta into smaller pieces for the true fideuá aesthetic.
Difficulty: Medium
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Ingredients
- Pasta
- Stock made with carrot, tomato, prawn skins, onion and bay leaf
- Monkfish
- 1 red and 1 green bell pepper
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 ripe tomato
- Mussels
- Prawns
- Squid
- Parsley, pepper, salt, saffron and white wine
- Sunflower oil
Preparation
- Prepare a stock using carrot, tomato, prawn skins, onion and bay leaf.
- Once the water is boiling, add the monkfish.
- Toast the pasta in the pan.
- Clean and steam the mussels.
- Finely chop the bell peppers and garlic.
- Cut and grate the tomato.
- Heat the oil in the pan.
- Strain the stock.
- Clean and cut the squid into rings and then add to the pan.
- Grind the saffron with the parsley, add the white wine and then add it all to the pan.
- Add the pasta and strained stock.
- Finally, add the prawns and mussels.
- Cook on a high heat for 10 minutes, reduce heat and simmer for a further 7-8 minutes.
- Leave to stand.
The History of Fideuá
There exists an interesting tale behind the creation of this relative of paella, who knows whether it is true or not. Fideuá was originally created in 1915 by fisherman Joan Batiste Pascual who was from Gandia, Valencia and was more commonly known as Zabalo.
Pascual called his creation "the daughter of the sea" as the dish was born aboard a fishing boat due to one greedy sailor. Pascual was a cook aboard this fishing boat and regularly served dishes of paella to the sailors, the skipper of the boat however, loved the paella rice so much that he would often eat more than his fair share, leaving the other sailors with less than their full ration of food. In an attempt to stop the skipper being so greedy, Pascual changed the rice to pasta and thus the fideuá was born.
Apparently though, this tactic did not work and the skipper continued to selfishly eat more than his fair share, which is understandable though, because this is a truly delicious dish which you must try. Word of this magical dish spread throughout the town of Gandia and later Valencia and it is now considered a traditional dish of the province.