A Clos de Muriers Recipe.

2 tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Med Onions
2 heads Fennel
1 kg Ripe Vine Tomatoes (blanched and skinned)
2 glasses white wine.
1 kg Mussels
5 cloves Garlic
3 Egg Yolks
225g (8oz.) Butter
Juice half Lemon.

Peel and chop the onions finely.
Chop the fennel finely (include any green fronds)
Put these on to sweat in the olive oil and sweat gently for 10 mts until soft.
Add the tomatoes and continue cooking until all are soft.
Go through the mussels, discard any that are open and beard the rest.
(Beards are the little whiskery hairs with which the mussel clings to the rocks)
Put these with the glass of wine into the pot with the vegetables.
Put on a cood lid and continue to simmer until all the Mussels have opened and yielded their juices into the sauce.
(At this stage you can add some fish stock if you would like a soupier mixture.)

Garlic Hollandaise
Pound or crush the garlic until mashed. Add this into the egg yolks .
Melt the butter until bubbling.
Gradually pour this, while still hot, on to yolks beating all the time (as in making Mayomnnaise)
Sharpen the taste with a little lemon juice.

To Serve
Ladle the piping hot Bouillabaisse into bowls, and dribble over the hollandaise. Put a large bowl in the centre of the table for the shells and put out some bowls of warm water and some napkins for sticky fingers.