Caldera
We need 6 medium-sized onions, 8 large cloves of garlic, 2 large green peppers, 1 dl of extra virgin olive oil, 60 g of parsley, a pinch of saffron, 500 g of potatoes, 3 bay leaves, 12 peppercorns, 4 large ripe tomatoes, 1 dl tomato purée, 5 dl dry white wine, 2.5 dl water, 500 g cleaned squid or cuttlefish, 1 kg fish blue (mackerel, tuna, swordfish), 1 kg of white fish (bass, sea frog, hake, haddock, etc.), 250 g of cleaned prawn tails, 24 mussels, 25 hearts, ground pepper, sea salt if need (be careful, seafood can be quite salty), cilantro or fresh parsley if desired.
preparation
We clean and fillet the fish. Slowly fry the chopped onion and the diced pepper in a large pot in olive oil for about ten minutes, and add the finely chopped garlic a few minutes before the end. Cover the pan and simmer very slowly for an additional 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the peppers are almost completely soft. Add finely chopped parsley, saffron, diced potatoes, bay leaves, peppercorns, sliced tomatoes, tomato puree, wine and water. Stir and cover when it boils, simmer for ten minutes. Add the cleaned copious mussels and sliced squid and simmer for the next ten minutes. Then add (in this order) the pieces of fish, the prawns and the mussels. We don’t mix. Season well with ground pepper, cover and cook for about fifteen minutes to cook the flesh of the fish and all the mussels should open. If one doesn’t open, we throw it away. The resulting fish soup or stew is stuffed into large soup cups or plates and sprinkled with chopped fresh cilantro if desired (for many tastes, fresh parsley may be a better choice). Serve with fresh country bread with a crusty crust and put some good extra virgin olive oil or truffle flavored oil on the table to drizzle the bread.
.