This is one of those mongrel dishes born of necessity. I'll call it Native American pasta because it's got succotash in a Mexican-style pasta with pulled chicken and a Spanish recipe chorizo.
Actually, I used pulled turkey meat because I had leftover turkey in the freezer from last year's Thanksgiving. But I don't recommend turkey. You would get a better tasting dish with chicken.
I started with La Moderna fideo (a short-stem pasta). La Moderna is a Mexican import made in four cities across the country. I found it at Winn Dixie in Florida, which impressed me, (distributed to the USA through InterAmerican Foods Corp. in Laredo, Texas).
Fideo is traditionally cooked with pulled chicken and a little bit of onion, and chicken broth. The recipe calls for 2.5 quarts of water for a 7-ounce packet.
But I don't want soup. I want pasta. So I boiled the fideo for 7 minutes in three cups of water, then drained.
This is a lot of pasta, and with the other ingredients, you end up with enough food to easily serve four hungry people.
Moving on, I still have some Goya chorizo. This is a Spanish-style smoked chorizo that is sold unrefrigerated, like jerky (it's not quite that salty, though). Chorizo is usually used for breakfast meals, but this is something that can be an ingredient in a lunch or dinner dish. Like I've said before, it's similar to pepperoni.
Keep in mind the paprika in this chorizo makes it tart. It has a pronounced sharp taste, like a real sharp cheddar cheese, so go light on the chorizo. And that's why I suggest chicken to provide more protein without overwhelming your dish.
Slice up two links of chorizo, and grill in the skillet. After the grease is flowing and sizzling, add some canola oil to avoid burning the chicken. Toss in the cooked chicken (a half-pound of pulled thigh or breast meat should do), and stir.
Succotash was introduced to Europeans by Narragansett Indians in New England as a mix of corn and lima beans. I just opened a can of cooked lima beans, and measured off an equal portion of frozen corn an tossed that over the meat.
Get a jar of pasta sauce. I used roasted garlic Ragù. This is a 1 lb-10 oz jar. Use all of it, but three-quarters of a jar will do if you're a little short.
Gently dump in the pasta so you don't splash anything, and bring it to a simmering boil for a couple minute - not too long because the pasta is already cooked; you're just trying to heat up the sauce and succotash by this time.
So, what's so great about fideo versus spaghetti? Well, spaghetti tends to be clumsier to deal with. I don't know the origins of fideo, but I suspect a no-nonsense Mexican mother got really pissed off at watching her kids slurp-suck up long-stem pasta, splattering sauce all over their faces and giggling at the result at the dinner table, and she decided to snap the pasta stem just to spoil their fun.
If you've got a more accurate version of history, I'd like to hear it. In the meantime, buen provecho!
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