Fideuà – Pasta Paella

From the coast of Valencia, this is a pasta dish that translates as ‘large amount of noodles’. It’s very similar to a seafood paella but with the rice replaced with noodles or pasta.

We made this Fideua recipe on the Big Green Egg and it was a huge success. We’ll probably have it more often than paella as it cooks so much faster.

It’s used making Fideo No.0 noodles which can be bought from specialist shops or online. Fideos are very small lengths of fine pasta, about 1-2cm in length. You can also use vermacelli baskets, breaking them down.

Method

1. Setup your Big Green Egg to cook at 200°C with a direct heat.
2. Pour about 50ml of olive oil into your paella pan and warm it up.
3. Add the fideos to the paella pan and cook for about 5-6 minutes, tossing or stirring frequently until they go a lovely golden brown colour.
4. Remove them from the pan and set aside in a bowl.
5. Add 100ml of oil to your paella pan and heat it up.
6. Add the chopped squid and cook for a few minutes until the water evaporates out of the squid.
7. Now add the chopped onion and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
8. Add the garlic and cook for 2 or 3 minutes until the onion and garlic start to brown.
9. Now add the peeled prawns and fideos to the pan and stir through.
10. Warm your stock and crush the saffron as you add it to the stock. Let it infuse.
11. Pour in as much stock as you think you need to soften the noodles but dry up in the pan.
12. Place the unpeeled prawns on top of the pasta.
13. Cook for about 4 minutes until the pasta has soaked up all the liquid.
14. Add the lemon wedges and cook for 3-4 mins longer, until the base of the noodles start to stick to the pan.
15. Take off the Egg and cover with a newspaper, this should draw up the noodles so some of them point vertically.

Optionally you can use clams and mussels when your’re cooking yout Fideuà.