Mussel Soup
“My parents recently came to me for lunch and, knowing my mother would expect something fishy, I made a fresh mussel soup; one of my newest additions to the Hartford House menu. In the restaurant we serve the soup in a bowl that looks like an ocean floor - well in my opinion it does... with its many smoky-flavour combinations we aptly name it ‘smoked-mussel soup; with fond seaside memories’. In our family no holiday was a holiday without spending time at our beach cottage in Pennington where, every morning, we picked our daily mussel allocation. As I served my parents I wondered if my soup compared favourably with my mother’s well-known Pennington, creamy, half-shelled, mussel gratin. What a savoury kick to get any palate excited it is truly yummy!”
Ingredients:
- 1L White Wine
- 400gr Half-Shelled Mussels, fresh if possible
- 35gr salted butter
- 30ml Sunflower Oil
- 200gr Onions, sliced
- 8gr Fresh Garlic, grated
- 5gr Fresh Fennel
- 150gr Potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 15ml Pernod Wine Liquor
- 250ml Cream
- 250ml Full Cream Milk
- 250ml Fish or Vegetable Stock
- 250ml White Wine poaching liquid (kept aside from when the mussels were poached)
- 100gr Mussels
Method:
- In a large pot bring the white wine to the boil.
- Then poach the mussels in the white wine for about 2 minutes, remove them from the wine and allow to slightly cool.
- Remove the mussels from the shells, keep the mussels to one side and place the shells back in the boiling wine and allow to boil for 5 minutes to enhance the mussel - white wine flavour, then stain the white wine through an oil filter, keep the liquid (for later use) aside and discard the mussels shells.
- Melt the butter and heat the sunflower oil in a pot.
- Add the onions and garlic, saute well.
- Add the fennel and potatoes, caramelising this really well.
- Then add the pernod, cream, milk, stock and white wine poaching liquid, cook until the potatoes are soft.
- Add the 100gr mussels, take off the heat.
- Blend, strain and check seasoning.
- When serving, heat up with the remaining mussels, and garnish with optional fresh fennel and deep - fried Nori Seaweed.
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I look forward to hearing from you.