Kloman Travel Books

Mussels—Moules Marinières or Mouclade

Preparation:
Mussels should be washed in cold water one or more times to remove any sand, and scrubbed if the shells look dirty or covered with seaweed. Also the "beards" should be pulled away or snipped. This step should not be done in advance of cooking lest it cause some of the mussels to die. (These instructions apply particularly to mussles harvested from the wild, but nowadays more and more mussels sold commercially have been farmed, and these tend to need less pre-cooking preparation.)

Cooking instructions usually advise discarding any open mussels in case they are no longer alive. However, some will close slowly if tapped or pressed: others will resist and are clearly alive. Examine those closely and use your judgment. There are few if any dead ones among cultivated mussels.

Ingredients:
2 quarts (about two pounds) mussels
1 cup dry white wine
2 clove garlic, minced
2 shallots, chopped
handful chopped parsley and/or other herbs you fancy
salt, freshly ground pepper

Place mussels and other ingredients in large pot. Cover and cook over medium-high heat for about six minutes, shaking or stirring occasionally until all mussels have opened. Discard any that have not opened. The mussels with their broth can be eaten at this point just as they are, soaking up the broth with bread. For a richer dish you can make a sauce.

To prepare the sauce, first remove mussels from pot. Pour liquid into a saucepan through a sieve lined with dampened cheesecloth to remove any trace of sand. Stir in three tablespoons of soft butter mixed with a tablespoon of flour. Reduce by half stirring often (three to four minutes). Pour sauce over mussels served in soup plates. Garnish with parsley.

La Mouclade (A Regional Specialty of Charente)
The dish above can be enhanced by the addition of one or more flavorful vegetables such as mushrooms (two or three), a small leek, fennel, or carrot, and some heavy cream. The vegetables, diced or julienned and sautéed in butter until tender, are then cooked along with the mussels and served in the sauce. But to avoid overcooking do not include them in the sauce reduction.

Add to the sauce three to four tablespoons heavy cream, a pinch of saffron, one teaspoon thyme and cook until the mixture begins to boil. Stir in reserved vegetables, which mingle with the cream to create a deliciously aromatic sauce. Serve in the same manner as moules marinières with French bread to soak up sauce.

This recipe was taken from Apartment in Paris.