Caldeirada (Portuguese monster fish stew)
I have used dorado fish.
6 medium onions, chopped
8 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 large green peppers, sliced
75 ml olive oil
60 g chopped flatleaf parsley
a good pinch of saffron
450 g potatoes, diced
2 or 3 bay leaves
12 peppercorns
4 large juicy ripe tomatoes, chopped
75 ml tomato paste
500 ml dry white wine
250 ml water
450 g calamari, cleaned
25 clams or cockles
900 g oily fish like mackerel, swordfish or tuna
900 g white fish like sea bass, monkfish, hake or haddock
225 g good large raw prawns
24 mussels
freshly ground black pepper
30 g chopped fresh coriander
Slowly sweat off the onion, garlic and green peppers in the olive oil for about 10 minutes. After sweating, cover to stew very gently for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. This breaks down the green pepper to a more palatable form.
Add the parsley, saffron, potatoes, bay leaves, peppercorns, tomatoes, tomato paste, wine and water. Cover and simmer for ten minutes.
Add the calamri and clams or cockles and simmer for another ten minutes.
Add the fish, prawns and mussels in layers. Don’t stir this as you’ll want the fish to cook in the broth.
Sprinkle with a heavy dose of the black pepper, cover and cook for about ten minutes or until the fish is cooked through and the mussels and clams or cockles are open. Discard any that don’t open.
Ladle the stew gently into vat-sized bowls and sprinkle with the chopped coriander.
Serve with bread. We also like to provide some piri piri as a dipping sauce alongside some olive oil laced with a little truffle oil to dip your bread into.
Photo: Hendrik Pretorius
