‘Fideuà’ (a noodle-dish) Gandía style
Gandía is known worldwide for its ‘fideuà’. A dish you have to eat if you ever visit this coastal town in the Valencian Community.
This town is very near our olive groves, less than an hour away by car. And with this recipe we want to pay a small tribute to Gandía.
Now, ‘fideuà’, like paella, allows for many variations but we want to present you with the ‘fideuà’ the way we make it at home.
We usually calculate quantities using ‘a water tumbler’ and we normally use the same quantity of stock as noodles. That’s our little secret and we’re going to share it with you right now.
Ingredients for 4 people
- 100 gr de prawns
- 100 gr monkfish
- 100 gr sea bass
- 100 gr calamari rings
- 2 ½ water tumblers noodles (number 4 are best)
- 200 gr chopped tomatoes
- 1 coffee-spoonful paprika
- 1 chopped onion
- ½ chopped green pepper
- Saffron
- 150 gr de Masía El Altet extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
- 2 ½ water tumblers fish stock
- Norway lobsters (optional. One per person)
Preparation
- Pour a generous amount of oil into a paella dish.
- When the oil is hot, place the prawns and Norway lobsters in it. Sauté them. Then set them aside.
- A bit of advice: crush the heads of the prawns so the juice comes out and mixes with the oil. That will give an incredible taste to the whole thing.
- Sauté the onion and green pepper slowly on a low heat. When you see that the vegetables have softened, add the sea bass, monkfish and the calamari rings.
- When everything has been sautéd, add the tomato and paprika (be very careful with the paprika because it’ll burn very quickly). Stir everything together and add the stock straight away.
- When the stock is boiling, add the noodles. Remember that you should always add the same quantity of fish stock as noodles.
- Leave it on a medium heat for 8 minutes and then it’s ready.
- Some more advice: heat the oven and leave the dish to ‘dry’ for 5 minutes.
For your ‘Fideuà‘ from Gandía to be really tasty, we highly recommend making homemade stock although it’s still true that you can buy it in the supermarket and there are some that are really good quality.
We make the fish stock with 1 kilo of rock fish, 200 grams of crab and 2 litres of water. You have to leave on a low heat for an hour and after, let it sit for 30 minutes. Remember that before using it, you have to strain it.
With this quantity of stock, you’ll have more than sufficient for the ‘fideuà’. What’s left over can be used for cooking some delicious noodles another day.
Something which is very typical throughout the Valencian Community is to serve the fideuà with ‘all i oli’ (a dressing made with garlic and oil). Obviously, this depends on individual tastes. There are people who like it stronger and others, less so. The only thing you have to do is add the amount of garlic you judge necessary to produce the desired strength in flavour.