by Patrick Boniface

Created on: July 11, 2011

Recipe: Mussel Chowder

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of good quality olve oil

1 onion, which has been peeled and finely chopped

250 grams of potatoes, which again have been peeled and diced

1 red pepper, deseeded and finely diced

1 kilogram of good quality mussels

Eight hundred mililiters of fish stock, either freshly made or shop bought

Three hundred mililiters of skimmed milk

2 tablespoons of cornflour

2 tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley (to serve)

The first thing you will need to do with this recipe is to gently heat the olive oil in a large pan. Once at heat gently toss in the chopped onions, potatoes and red pepper and fry quickly for about five minutes. The next stage will see you adding the fish stock and the mussels to the pan. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to the boil. Then cover the pan and leave to simmer for another five minutes.

From you utensils tray find a slotted spoon and use this to remove the mussels from the pan. By now the mussels should have opened and it will be relatively simple to pull them out of their shells. Don't remove all of the mussels as you will need a handful to use as garnish, but once the remainder have been pulled discard their shells in the trash can. At this point you should also discard any mussels that have not opened as these will invariably have gone off and should not be eaten.

The mussels should now be returned to the pan to which you should also now add the three hundred militres of fresh skimmed milk and again bring the mixture to the boil. Meanwhile, take the cornflour and mix with some water to form a thin paste and this should then also be added to the pan, whisking as you do so. This cornflour will thicken the chowder slightly.

Once cooked through thoroughly empty the pan's contents onto serving plates and garnish with the reserved mussels in their shells and some fresh chopped parsley

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