Fernando's Latin American Cuisine

Fernando Echeverria, owner of Fernando's Latin American Cuisine (14135 SW Fwy., 281-494-9087), has figured out a shortcut for preparing one of the world's most time-consuming dishes. In order to prepare traditional paella, you need mussels, clams, calamari, shrimp, lobster, crawfish, chicken, chorizo, olive oil, garlic and rice, among other ingredients. You cook the rice, adding the spices and ingredients at different stages while carefully attending to the dish all through the cooking process, which takes some time. Fernando uses all of these ingredients but substitutes fresh linguine for the rice — and voilà, a quicker dish called pasta paella ($26.95) is born, with just as much flavor as the original.