I subscribe to several cooking magazines and watch all the cooking shows on PBS. Whenever I come across a recipe that sounds good I put it in my “what to cook” list. Then when I’m looking for ideas I browse that list.
We cooked a delicious bone-in Ossian ham for Easter. After we were done I was cutting the meat from the bone and wondering what to do with it. I remembered I had noted on one of the recipes in my what to cook list to try this one when I had a ham bone. I went looking through my list and it was a recipe for fideuá.
Fideuá is a Spanish dish like paella, but you use fideo noodles instead of rice. If you’re not familiar with fideos they’re like angel hair pasta, broken into 1 inch pieces.
Since it was Debbie and me I didn’t get to use my big paella pan and made it in my second-favorite cast-iron skillet.
This is adapted from a recipe that appeared in Food & Wine magazine, April 2010.
Fideuá. Fideos with ham, shrimp, and clams.
Two very generous portions
Ingredients
1 meaty ham bone
Generous pinch saffron threads
Onion sliced 1/4 thick like onion rings. If you’re using a big sweet onion about 2 slices
1/2 pound fideos or angel hair pasta broken into 1-inch lengths
1/2 pound shrimp (25 count size is what I used, but any size will work)
2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 pound mushrooms, trimmed, sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick. I used baby portobellos, any mushroom you like will work
Salt and pepper
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 shallot, thinly sliced (regular onion is just fine too)
1/2 cup olives, pitted and chopped. Green or black, whatever you like
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 cup dry sherry, or dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 dozen clams, scrubbed
1/4 cup chopped cilantro for garnish
Procedure
In a large pot, cover the ham bone with water and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat about 1 1/2 hours. Strain the broth and skim off the fat. You’ll need about 3 cups for this recipe. If you have more save the rest for other recipes, if you have less add water to make 3 cups. Crumble the saffron into the 3 cups of broth and set aside.
Remove the meat from the bone and cut into bite sized pieces. Discard the bone.
Heat the oven to 400°.
While the oven is coming to temperature, heat a grill pan. Grill the onion rings over high heat until lightly charred all over, about 2 minutes. Chop in halves or quarters. Set aside.
Spread the fideos on a large rimmed baking sheet and bake in the oven until browned, 5-10 minutes. Check every few minutes and stir them around if needed. They can burn easily if you leave them unattended.
Peel and de-vein the shrimp if needed.
Heat a large skillet (mine is a 12 inch) and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until browned, about 3 minutes.
Add the another tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet. Add the garlic and shallots and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
Stir in the chopped ham, olives and crushed red pepper, then stir in the fideos. Add the sherry and cook over moderately high heat for about 2 minutes. Stir in the ham broth and the lemon juice and add 1 cup of hot water. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer.
Add the shrimp and clams to the skillet and simmer over moderately high heat, turning the seafood a few times, until the fideos have absorbed most of the liquid, the shrimp are cooked and the clams have opened, about 4 minutes. Add liquid if it’s getting dry before the seafood is done.
Sprinkle with the grilled onions and cilantro. Drizzle with a little olive oil if you like.
Serve right away.
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