Ingredients
- 30ml olive oil
- 100g bacon, finely chopped
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 2 celery sticks, finely chopped
- 1 fresh red chilli , deseeded and finely chopped
- 4 ears of sweet corn
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 cm cubes
- 1 litre vegetable or fish stock
- 1kg live mussels, washed and de-bearded, or 400g local frozen half-shell mussels, thawed
- 100ml cream
- 30ml fresh parsley, finely chopped
- Salt and cracked pepper, to season
Method
- Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat, add the bacon, onion, celery and chilli, and sweat for 5 minutes – until soft, not browned.
- Peel husks from the sweet corn and slice off the kernels with a sharp knife.
- Add the sweet corn and potatoes to the saucepan, along with the stock.
- Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft.
- Blitz very roughly with a hand blender, and add the mussels and cream.
- Bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes until the mussels have opened.
- If using local frozen half-shell mussels, add now and cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and season well with salt and pepper.
- Serve piping hot, garnished with freshly chopped parsley.
A little tip: To avoid teary eyes when slicing the onions, pop them in the freezer (the onions, not your eyes) for about 20 minutes before you begin. Super cold onions are much slower to release those tear-jerker fumes.
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