What Catalonian dish is a noodle paella often cooked with seafood? The answer is fideuà. It is a Valencian coastal dish made with short or long pasta noodles instead of the rice used in paella. Typical versions combine noodles with fish, cuttlefish, squid, shrimp, crayfish, or other shellfish, all cooked in a flavorful seafood stock.
Fideuà is especially associated with Gandia on Spain’s Valencian coast. A popular origin story credits cook Gabriel Rodríguez Pastor and his assistant Juan Bautista Pascual, who supposedly replaced rice with noodles so a boat captain would not receive the sailors’ entire share of arròs a banda. Whether every detail of the story is certain, Gandia remains closely identified with the dish.
Like paella, fideuà is commonly cooked in a wide, shallow pan. The noodles are sautéed and then cooked in stock rather than boiled separately. Lemon is a traditional accompaniment, and allioli is also frequently served with it. The key distinction from paella is the starch: fideuà uses pasta, while paella uses rice.