Mussel soup with artichoke tartines

Name: Mussel soup with artichoke tartines
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: 500 g mussels; 250 ml cider; salt and pepper to season; 50 g Gruyère cheese, finely grated; 100 g cream cheese; a squeeze of lemon juice; 125 g artichoke hearts, chargrilled or in brine, drained; 125 ml double cream; 2 rectangular slices of rye bread, halved; 1 green pepper, cored, deseeded and finely diced; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 400 ml hot vegetable stock; 1 large leek, trimmed and finely diced; 1 onion, finely chopped; 2 tbsp olive oil; 50 g baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Prue

By Prue Leith

Published 2018

About

Mussel soup is reliably delicious, but this is unusual and pretty as well. You can assemble the tartines in advance (stopping short of the final grilling) and make the soup without adding the mussels, cream and spinach. Then, when you want to eat, add these to the liquid and reheat, and put the tartines under the grill.

Ingredients

500 g mussels
250 ml cider
2 tbsp

Fish course
Starter
Pescatarian
Soup

Method

Prepare the mussels: scrub each one, removing any sand or seaweedy ‘beards’. Discard any open mussels that refuse to close even when given a sharp tap. Rinse well under cold water. Put the mussels in a saucepan with a close-fitting lid. Pour over the cider and close the lid. Cook over a high heat for 3–4 minutes, shaking the pan regularly.
Drain, reserving the