Name of Recipe: Crema de mejillones (Mussel soup) – not tested
Comments in square brackets are mine and not in the original recipe.
Number of People: 4
Ingredients: For the Varoma basket -
1.5kg mussels
500g water
For the sofrito –
150g leeks
50g olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled
150g crushed tomatoes
1 green apple, peeled and chopped
1 tsp dill, chopped
Other ingredients –
25g biscotes [French toast-type things]
50g anise seeds
2 fish stock cubes
Ground pepper
300g of the cooking water from the mussels
To garnish –
12 small cherry tomatoes
Anise seeds
Preparation:Clean the mussels under the ‘grifo’ by rubbing one against the other and place in the Varoma basket. [Grifo in Spanish means ‘tap’ and obviously refers to some part of the mussel’s anatomy. I have no idea how to translate this into English, so if anyone is well versed in mussel knowledge, could you give me a word to use please?]
Put 500g water in the
7 minutes / Temp. Varoma /Speed 2.
After this time, place the Varoma basket on the TM lid
12 minutes / Temp. Varoma / Speed 2.
When the time is up, remove the water from the
and reserve.
Remove the all but 12 of the mussels from their shells. These 12 are used as a garnish and you should remove the beards.
Wash the leeks, dispose of the green part and chop them.
Put all of the ingredients for the sofrito in the
and set
10 seconds / Speed 5.
Scrape down the inside of the bowl with the spatula and set
10 minutes /Temp. Varoma / Speed 1.
When finished, add the mussels, the biscotes, the anise seeds, the stock cubes, the pepper and the water
1 minute / Speed 9 so that the ingredients are well ground.
Pour the soup into individual bowls and garnish with the cherry tomatoes, cut in half, the anis seeds and the reserved mussels arranged around the edge.
Tips/Hints: [I don't think I have ever seen anise seeds, so you could use fennel seeds instead].
Origin: Translated from a recipe in
Cocina española con Thermomix (Susaeta Ediciones).
