{"id":15274,"date":"2020-09-08T00:32:04","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T22:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devourbarcelonafoodtours.com\/?p=2609"},"modified":"2022-02-25T19:05:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-25T19:05:36","slug":"mama-carmens-fideua-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dev.devourtours.com\/blog\/mama-carmens-fideua-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Mama Carmen’s Fideu\u00e0 Recipe"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
This blog post was originally posted on March 9, 2016, and was updated on September 8, 2020. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n This recipe comes from one of our favorite people in Barcelona: Mama Carmen, whose small seaside restaurant Cal Papi was a local institution for decades. Though Cal Papi sadly closed down when Carmen retired in 2019, her famous fideu\u00e0 <\/em>recipe lives on!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n The important difference between fideu\u00e0<\/em> and paella<\/a> is the main ingredient. In paella, this is, of course, rice. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n On the other hand, fideu\u00e0<\/em> gets its name from the word fideos.<\/em> This is the small, vermicelli-type noodle that replaces the rice in fideu\u00e0<\/em>. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Unlike paella, there are no chicken and rabbit-based, or vegetarian fideu\u00e0s<\/em>; they all revolve around seafood. Add a healthy dollop of garlic alioli<\/em> (another addition never found in paella) and fideu\u00e0<\/em> is perfection on a plate. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n But the two dishes have a lot in common, the first being that both paella and fideu\u00e0<\/em> are typically eaten at lunch. They’re both heavy and hearty dishes that fill you up, and since lunch is the biggest meal of the day here in Spain, you’ll have plenty of time to digest it and get energized for the rest of your day. Eating paella or fideu\u00e0<\/em> for dinner is basically unheard of. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Legend says that the very first fideu\u00e0 <\/em>was actually supposed to be a seafood paella! As the story goes, the dish was born in the early 20th century<\/a> on board one of the fishing vessels that sailed out from Gandia, in Valencia, every morning. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The cook on board this particular ship went to prepare a seafood paella for the crew for lunch. Only after starting the sofrito<\/em> did he realize, to his horror, that there was no rice on board the boat! Thinking quickly, he continued making the recipe to avoid wasting what he’d already made, and simply replaced the rice with small noodles (fideos<\/em>). <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n A similar version of the story alludes to a greedy captain who wanted the cook’s delicious paella all for himself, so the cook had no other option but to whip up something else for the crew, and thus used the noodles instead of rice in a similar dish. Whichever version of the story you believe, they both end with delicious results, and fideu\u00e0<\/em> has been a staple of Valencian and Catalan cuisine<\/a> ever since.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEveryone’s heard of paella\u2014but what about its noodle-based cousin, fideu\u00e0? Try making it yourself with this fideu\u00e0 <\/em>recipe.<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Fideu\u00e0 vs. paella<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The fascinating history of fideu\u00e0<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n