Fideos with Clams

I need to do more exercise. I woke up this morning with a stiff right shoulder.

This came first of all from using a balloon whisk to whip the cream for the Blueberry Syllabub and then later using the same whisk to make a thick garlic flavoured Alioli to go with the pan of Fideos with Clams I made for supper.

The recipe for both came from the Morito cookbook.

Fideo is basically a paella made with pasta instead of rice. You can buy the pasta to make it with from Lunya but it doesn’t have to be anything special. I have in the past made it with macaroni, and broken up angel hair pasta would work just as well.

I made a fish stock with a massive hake’s head from Wards. I also bought from them 25 carpet clams and five large prawns.

I started cooking by frying chopped onions, garlic, green pepper, a leek and tomatoes in olive oil until they were soft and golden. They were seasoned with a couple of bay leaves, sprigs of thyme, saffron and lemon zest. I tipped the cooked vegetables out of the pan, added more oil and fried the fideo until they just started to brown, then tipped the vegetables back in, gave it a stir and poured in the stock.

Rather than cooking it on the hob I put the pan into a hot oven but not before tucking the clams in.

Whilst that cooked I made the alioli. Two egg yolks into a large metal bowl and then drip drip dripping in a mixture of olive and sunflower oil all the while beating fiercely with the balloon whisk. It took about ten minutes of solid beating until it all came together, a pale yellow mayonnaise into which I stirred a couple of garlic cloves that had been crushed up in sea salt.

At the last moment I fried the prawns in hot oil with more garlic, salt and pepper and laid them around the pan of fideos.

We spooned it onto our plates dolloping the alioli on top. We ate it with a salad made with some of the golden beetroot that are growing in the garden, it looked like a blaze of sunshine.