Caldeirada de Peixe  (Fish Stew)

Ingredients (serves four):

1,5 kg fish [being obligatory: rascasso (spike fish), safio(small conger), pata-roxa (baby shark), and optional: raia (ray fish), tremelga (cramp fish), tamboril (monkfish), peixe-aranha (spider fish), ruivo (mullet), xarroco e corvina (rock bass)]

1 kg of ripe tomatoes
1,5 dl olive oil
3 onions
3 cloves of garlic

1 green pepper
1 glass white wine
1 bunch of parsley
1 point of a bay leaf

Pepper
500 gr. (baby) clams or cockles
700 gr. potatoes
Salt

To prepare the fish, they are cut into pieces or mouthfuls, according to the species and they are seasoned with salt. The pata-roxa should be seasoned with salt only 15 minutes before the caldeirada is getting ready. Use the head of the rascaço and the bones and the cartilages of the head of the safio. Of this fish use only the part from the navel upward. The clams (or the baby-clams or the cockles) should be well washed and without sand and they are placed in the bottom of the pot. Sprinkle with the olive oil. The fish is put in layers alternating with the onions, the tomato and the potatoes cut in slices, the pepper in stripes and the minced garlic. The hardest fish are placed underneath and the most sensitive on top. Everything is sprinkled with white wine; parsley and bay-leaf are added. The whole is seasoned with pepper; the recipient closed and left to cook on a low fire.
The caldeirada is generally ready in about 30 minutes.
Serve it in such a way so that everybody eats of all the species of fish.
After serving the caldeirada, strain the broth, add some water and boil it. As soon as it is boiling put in some macaroni (2 spoons per person), when cooked; the soup is served.
The fishermen always include some sardines, when they use squid; they cook them first in water and salt. To keep the caldeirada from burning, they put unpeeled, quartered potatoes in the bottom of the pot, being the part of the potato with skin in contact with the bottom of the pot.