Author Notes
Midnight in Lisbon. You’ve just taken the #28 tram up the hill from the Plaça. You are hungry, you are poor. Or maybe you are just a dorm rat at Pomona College and all you have is a can of clams and a package of fideo noodles (or worse, ramen) and a hot plate. You can feed your starving bohemian soul for about $5.00 and maybe your soulmate too, before you go back to work on that stage play you’ll never finish---a midsummer night’s dream, or something like that.
Just about everything here comes out of the pantry or freezer. By the way, frozen peas are very handy to have around. But canned clams and canned tuna are your essential life support system. Along with noodles. The key thing here is to lightly toast the fideo in olive oil and bacon fat along with garlic. And I’m thinking that your inner dorm rat might actually be able to use a 25 cent package of ramen provided that you throw the seasoning packet in the trash first.
—pierino
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Ingredients
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1 6.5 ounce can clams, drained and liquid reserved
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½ of one package of fideo noodles, about three ounces (or substitute ramen)
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¼ cup frozen peas
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1 thick slice bacon cut into lardons
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1 clove garlic
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1 scallion
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1 tablespoon olive oil
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Splash of white wine
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Sea salt and black pepper
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1 tablespoon unseasoned bread crumbs
Directions
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In a deep pan or cazuela heat up the olive oil and add the bacon lardons. Render the fat down patiently. If necessary spoon some off.
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Add the garlic to the pan along with the fideo. You may have to break up the fideo coils first. Allow them to just brown a bit.
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Add the clams, the peas and the scallion. Toss that around and add the reserved clam nectar and the white wine. It’s possible you will need more liquid but most likely not.
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Season with salt and pepper. And once the fideo noodles are al dente stir in the bread crumbs. If you want to splurge on chopped parsley, well go ahead.
That’s your dish. Boa noite.
Standup commis flâneur, and food historian. Pierino's background is in Italian and Spanish cooking but of late he's focused on frozen desserts. He is now finishing his cookbook, MALAVIDA! Can it get worse? Yes, it can. Visit the Malavida Brass Knuckle cooking page at Facebook and your posts are welcome there.
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