Home cooks and “seafood” fans are usually don’t think too much about how to cook mussels. You can eat it without any condiments, or just bake it with cheese. You can say that mussels are delicious themselves and I won’t deny it, but I can tell you how to make them even tastier and reveal new notes of their taste. Even the most beautiful girl can improve something in herself – character, laugh, style, and she will become even more beautiful. The same thing with the mussels.
Ingredients
Method
- Mash the softened butter with the mustard, anchovy, garlic, herbs, Worcestershire sauce, curry powder, paprika, lemon zest and a pinch of salt until evenly mixed.
- Refrigerate the Café de Paris butter until needed.
- Rinse the mussels in a sink of cold water and scrub off any grit.
- Pull off the beards, tugging them towards the hinge of the shell.
- Tap any open mussel on the counter; throw it away if it doesn't close within a minute, and throw away any with cracked shells.
- Fry the bacon lardons in the large pot over medium heat for 6–8 minutes, until crisp.
- Lift out the lardons with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat in the pot.
- Heat the olive oil in the skillet over medium heat and fry the bread cubes for 4–5 minutes, turning, until golden; set aside.
- If using gizzards, warm the slices in the same skillet for 3–4 minutes, until the edges crisp.
- Add the 20 g of butter to the bacon fat in the pot, then the onion, shallots and thyme, and cook over medium heat for 4–5 minutes, until soft but not browned.
- Pour in the wine and raspberry vinegar and bring to the boil over high heat.
- Tip in the mussels and cover the pot tightly.
- Steam for 4–6 minutes, shaking the pot once or twice, until the shells have opened wide.
- Turn off the heat, add the Café de Paris butter in pieces, cover and leave for 1 minute.
- Toss the mussels so the melting butter coats them, and throw away any that stay firmly shut.
- Taste the broth and season with pepper, and with salt only if needed; the bacon and mussels are already salty.
- Ladle the mussels and broth into the warm bowls and scatter over the lardons, gizzards, croutons and parsley.
- Serve with an empty bowl for the shells.
- Scrub, clean and de-beard the mussels.
- Heat the butter over medium-high heat in a large, wide-bottomed pot with a lid.
- Sautee the shallot, green onion and thyme until it is soft but not browned.
- Add the white wine and raspberry vinegar, and bring it to a boil.
- Cover the pot and let the mussels steam for 3-8 minutes until all the mussels are open..
- As soon as most of the mussels are open, turn off the heat and toss in the “Café de Paris” butter.
- Cover for a minute
- Garnish with croutons, confit duck gizzards and parsley.
- Then season with salt and pepper to your preference.
- Serve with an extra bowl for the shells.
What we changed for home
- Mussels raised from 500 g to 2 kg for four main courses The original serves 4–6 from 500 g, about 100 g in the shell each; a main course is usually around 500 g per person.
- The mussels go into the pot after the wine The method steams the mussels without ever adding them.
- Bacon cooked into crisp lardons, with its fat used to soften the onions Bacon is on the list but not in the method. The lardons also stand in for the confit duck gizzards, which are hard to buy outside France.
- Café de Paris butter given a short home recipe, 100 g instead of 200 g It is a spiced herb butter you make yourself, not something you can buy. With the juices of 2 kg of mussels, 100 g enriches the broth without making it greasy.
- Onion and shallot used as listed The method softens 'green onion', which is not on the list.
- Raspberry vinegar can be replaced with red wine vinegar and a little raspberry jam Raspberry vinegar is sold in many European supermarkets; elsewhere the mix gives a similar fruity sharpness.
- Bouchot mussels can be any rope-grown mussels, such as Prince Edward Island (PEI) Bouchot is a French growing method; rope-grown mussels are just as clean and sweet.
- Croutons made from a baguette The original lists croutons 'to taste' without saying how to make them.
The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.
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