Day Six, already? Today’s letter in the A to Z Challenge is F.
The first word I thought of was Fideo, not Fi-deo, but Fee-day-0; which is Angel Hair Pasta.
I was going to write about Fajas (girdles) or Flores (flowers) but food won out. So you know what’s on my mind.
Fideo is another ‘poor person’s’ dish, like enchiladas with cheese, but much easier and faster to make. However, it’s not the main meal, it’s a side dish.
Fideo may have been the first food I tried to make on my own, as a kid, for the family. I recall this dish as comfort food.
Some people called fideo the Mexican spaghetti, but don’t let a Mexican mom hear that comparison. Spaghetti is spaghetti and fideo is fideo: never the twain shall meet.
There are two types of fideo: seco as in dry and regular or ‘soupy’ as my mom says Fideo soupy (a great example of a Spanglish term to describe a dish).
Technically, it’s sopa de fideo.
Our household made fideo soupy only. The hot caldo (broth) was full of flavorful tomato sauce with onion and garlic flavors.
This is how it looks when it comes out of the package. We never cooked the entire coils but broke them up into bite-size pieces, sauteed the fideo in hot oil, with onions, garlic, salt, maybe a dash of oregano.
After the fideo is toasty, you add four ounces tomato sauce and eight ounces of water, (you could use vegetable or chicken stock instead) bring to a boil, lower and test for to see if it’s soft after 10 minutes.
That’s it, the fideo is done.
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