Grao de Gandia
Making paella can be a daunting challenge for many, getting the proportion of water to rice right so it doesn’t stick and go soggy, managing to get an intense flavour and so on, but for others it can be just an impossible task because they either don’t have a paella pan or can’t find the Valencian round rice if they live abroad and you can’t make a paella with any other rice and achieve a good result. So I figured I would write a post on an alternative recipe which is so easy and so good that you just can’t go wrong no matter how bad you are in the kitchen, if you put this on the table you will immediately become a star!
Fideuá is a very typical Valencian dish made with seafood and pasta, and pasta is much easier than rice! Traditionally it is cooked in a paella pan but you can do it perfectly well in a large non-stick frying pan without any problems at all and the technique I’m going to explain is absolutely fool proof and was shown to me by a chef in Cullera, Valencia, who whipped out dozens of Fideuá every lunch time and were always cooked to perfection. So how do we make it?
The key to this dish is in fact the stock, as with the Lobster rice post, the secret is to make a good fish and seafood stock which is really simple. All supermarkets in Spain and the UK that have a fish counter sell mixed fish for fish stock (white fish) and fish bones such as hake or monk fish and small uncooked prawns are available everywhere so you shouldn’t have any difficulty finding the necessary ingredients for the stock. This type of fish is also very cheap. Here in Spain 1kg won’t cost you more than €4,50 and will make enough stock for two medium sized Fideuá so you can freeze the rest of the stock for another day. Fideuá was actually invented by accident by a Valencia fisherman called Joan Batiste Pascual who lived and worked in the Grao de Gandia.
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Apart from being a fisherman he was also responsible for cooking the lunch on board which was pretty much always “arroz a banda”, rice cooked with fish and fish stock, but it was also the Captain’s favourite dish and as a result he would always take huge helpings reducing the rations left for the other fisherman, who always went hungry, so one day he decided to uses short noodles instead of rice hoping the captain would find it less appetising but it was a great success and was to go on to become a traditional dish in the fishing town and spread all over the region.
Here are the ingredients you will need to make a Fideuá for 4 adults:
Stock:
1kg of mixed white fish and fish bones for stock
300g of Small uncooked prawns
50g Fresh “flat” parsley with stems
2 cloves of garlic
½ glass of dry white wine (this is optional)
0,2g of Natural toasted Saffron or a sprinkle of dried saffron powder
3 tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Picual is ideal or Hojiblanca
1 large onion cut into quarters
Salt for seasoning.
*If you are not up for making your own stock you can buy it ready made in all Spanish supermarkets and I recommend the stock made buy 'Aneto', but it actually works out cheaper and better to make it yourself.
Fideuá:
500g of Fideuá Pasta / Small thin elbow pasta or short thick noodles (Fideo Nº5)
2 ripe tomatoes – grated with a cheese grater.
1 large onion finely diced
2tps of paprika powder
Uncooked Seafood:
4 large king size prawns
8 medium sized scampi
300 g of small prawns
200g of small squid
• TIP: If you don’t like bits in your food remove the tentacles and the legs from the small prawns before cooking them otherwise you will be picking them out of your Fideuá while you eat, as they fall off when you cook them.
• TIP: Cleaning the squid – slice the squid open lengthways and remove the cartilage back bone from inside, it comes away really easily and wash out the inside with cold water. Then chop up into pieces.
All together in Spain this won’t cost more than 12 euros, in the UK I’m not so sure, but it is not expensive seafood. Really you can add any shellfish to this dish such as mussels and more extravagant seafood if your budget permits such as carabineros/scarlet prawns. But this is enough to make a fantastic and flavourful Fideuá. It really is a simple fool proof dish.
Making the Stock :
Fry the 300g of uncooked prawns (don’t remove anything from these prawns as they only contribute to the stock) in a deep source pan with the extra virgin olive oil until they are well cooked and the oil takes on a rich colour, be careful not to burn them, but squash the heads with a fork as you are cooking them, this will help release all the flavour, it sounds horrible but the taste is incredible. Now fill the pan with water and put in the rest of the ingredients, adding the wine once the stock is boiling and simmer for two and a half hours. Scoop off the foam that rises to the surface of the stock during the first half hour until no more appears, season with salt if necessary, and then once finished pass the stock through a fine sieve twice and put to one side.
Preparing the Fideuá:
Add some olive oil to the paella pan or frying pan and fry all the seafood except the squid. Once browned, remove from the pan and put to one side. Add the diced onions and fry for a couple of minutes, add the grated tomato and fry for about 8-10 minutes until it starts to take a thicker consistency (the water has evaporated from the tomato), add the squid to the pan and cook for a few minutes, mix altogether and in the pan and make a small opening in the centre of the pan, there should be some olive oil in the middle, if not add a small dash of oil, let it heat up and pop in the paprika, move it very quickly with a spatula so it doesn’t stick for about 30 seconds then add a large soup ladle of hot stock and stir in, the stock must be very hot before adding it, so the paprika doesn’t burn.
Add the 500g of Fideuá pasta (or small elbow macaroni or short noodles) stir in and spread the pasta around the pan. Normally people would add all the stock to the pan and cross their figures the pasta doesn’t get over cooked. But this trick will deliver a perfect Fideuá every time. From this point onwards all you have to do is once the stock has almost evaporated, add another ladle or two of stock, move it all around with a large spoon and let it almost evaporate and then do it again. Keep doing this until the pasta is cooked and ready to eat. Add the stock little by little. When the pasta is almost cooked put the seafood back in and spread over the top of the pasta. Once the pasta is ready you want it to be left with hardly any stock, wet and moist, not liquid stock, don’t let it dry out completely though. When you remove it from the heat and let it sit for a couple minutes the final stock left over will reduce a little further and thicken as it cools slightly.
It is now ready to eat. Enjoy with a glass of white wine!