Prep Time 5 minutes - Total Time 30 minutes - Serves 2
If you love Spanish food and in particular paella, you will love this dish.
Fideuá is a dish that originates from Valencia and is very similar to paella but instead of using rice you use pasta and it’s absolutely amazing. Ok, ok forgive me typically you don’t use chorizo but it works so well and I love the stuff so I’m using it hahaha.
Ingredients
200g of fideo pasta no.2.
2 garlic cloves.
1/2 white onion, diced.
100g of chorizo sausage, diced.
500g of live mussels, scrubbed and bearded*.
2 salad tomatoes, grated.
1 tsp of smoked paprika.
1 small pinch of saffron.
1 litre of stock.
Serve with:
Method
The first thing to do is get the stock on a low simmer.
Get a large frying pan or paella pan over a high heat and add a good drizzle of olive oil, enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Throw in the 2 whole garlic cloves along with the pasta and coat in the oil. Fry for 4-5 minutes or till the pasta is toasted and a beautiful golden colour. Keep stirring as it will burn. Once done remove from the pan and keep to one side.
In the same pan add another drizzle of olive oil followed by the onions, chorizo and a pinch of salt. You want to fry this over a medium to high heat and really get some colour on it but without burning the onions, around 2-3 minutes.
Next, pour in the grated tomato as well as the paprika and give that another couple of minutes so that the water from the tomatoes evaporated. Then return the pasta to the pan and give everything is a really good mix.
Now it’s time to add the stock. You are going to have to use your judgement at this point because depending on the type of pasta you may need a little less. I recommend pouring in around 3/4 of the stock then sprinkling over the saffron and giving it another good mix.
Arrange the mussels over the top and cook over a high heat for 5 minutes or till the mussels and pasta are cooked and you are left with no stock. Finally once done take off the heat and cover with some tinfoil and allowed to rest for 5 minutes.
*Important: Please be careful when cooking with raw mussels, they MUST be alive at the time of cooking. Place the mussels in a colander and give them a good wash under cold running water. Use the back of a knife to scrape off any barnacles, scrub them if need be, and pull the mussels beards off. Once cleaned check the mussels are all closed. If any are open give them a tap on the shell and if they close they are alive. If they stay open, throw them in the bin as it’s dead and you don’t want to eat one.