Beautifully simple, reassuringly rustic and moreish to boot. Here’s my recipe for open-baked mussels that my children can’t get enough of. It’s a reasonably cheap dish that’s definitely crowd-pleasing comfort food, and yet I believe it to be equally worthy of any dinner party.

Ingredients:

• 1kg mussels
• Hunk of sourdough (to make breadcrumbs)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Bunch of parsley
• 1 tomato, deseeded and diced (concasse)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 70g ham, chopped
• 2 banana shallots, finely diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 125ml white wine (or water)

Method:

1. Clean and sort through your mussels, removing beards and discarding any open (dead) ones. 
2. Pop the mussels in a pot with a sprinkling of shallot, parsley stalks and the white wine (or water). Cover with a lid and steam the mussels for 4 minutes.
3. Discard any mussels that didn’t open during cooking.
4. Remove half of each mussel shell and lay the full halves out on a baking sheet. 
5. Blitz the sourdough bread in a food processor to make a crumb. mix in the rest of the finely diced shallot, crushed garlic, chopped parsley leaves, ham, lemon zest and diced tomato. Add a good glug of olive oil and spoon the mix over the mussels. 
6. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes until golden brown. 
7. Serve with french fries and mayonnaise for a glorious experience.