COOKING MUSSELS

Mussels are a tempting order at a restaurant when you are on holiday in Southern France. If you are on a self-catering holiday, buying your own and feasting on freshly-cooked mussels is simply sublime. At Domaine La Royale near Carcassonne, I have equipped our holiday gite with a pan specially for cooking mussels or moules  as the French call them. 

Mussels, often called the poor man's oyster, must be alive (that's the mollusc that lives inside the shell) when you cook them. They should smell pleasantly of the sea. Those that smell bad or "off", are dead or dying and toxic! Where you buy them from is important. A fishmonger should have a high turnover of mussels and the conditions (temperature and humidity) will be favourable. A fishmonger will stock them when they are in season and at their best, so always try and get them from a wet fish shop rather than a supermarket. Your trade will help an enterprising small business and a good fishmonger is unlikely to sell you mussels that are poor quality because he wants you back as a repeat customer. Cook them the same day they were purchased.

So, you've bought a big bag of mussels and got them back home in the kitchen. So what do you do next?

Firstly, under running water, rinse and inspect each mussel. Throw away any mussels with damaged shells or mussels with open shells that don't close after you've tapped them gently against a hard surface. These mussels will be dead or dying so don't cook them or eat them.

So, you are left with mussels that smell pleasantly of the sea and all have closed shells.

CLEANING THE MUSSEL
Cleaning them can be a chore. Their "beard" can be removed with your fingers or using the side of a small blunt knife gripping their beard between your thumb and the side of the knife resting against your forefinger. A good way of describing the technique is to think of when you wrap a parcel and you want the ribbon to be become curly, it's the same gripping action. If the beard is difficult to remove one way, turn the mussel around and pull the beard from the other direction. If you buy your mussels from a good fishmonger, the mussels will have little or no beard. Mussels use their beard to hang on to whatever it is they attach themselves to. After de-bearding the mussels, rinse them quickly again and use a finger-nail brush or other stiff brush to scrub them. Seaweed, barnacles and sundry flotsam are not part of this recipe  :-)

COOKING THE MUSSEL
Now the cooking. There are loads of mussel recipes out there but here's my version of Moules Marinière.

For two persons:

Just over a kilo of mussels
A large knob of butter
A large cup of medium-dry or dry white wine
A palm-full of chopped parsley.
A pepper-mill
A couple or three shallots
Garlic - 1 clove of garlic per person (optional)
A large cooking pot with a snug fitting lid.

Firstly, finely chop the shallots (you can use ordinary onions but the result is not half as good) and garlic (optional) and fry them together in the pot with the large knob of butter. Stirring continuously, wait until they become translucent using a medium heat. They should not turn brown. When they have turned soft and translucent, add the wine. Bring it to the boil and boil-off the alcohol for a minute or so. Turn up the heat a bit and carefully (avoiding any steam and hot splashes) add your mussels to the pot.  How many mussels per person? Depends, allow half a kilo per person which is a decent portion as a main. When buying them, buy a few extra to allow chucking any duff ones.

The object here is to cook the mussels in the steam of the liquor so make sure you give the pan enough heat to keep the liquor steaming hot. That's also why you need a snug-fitting lid on your pot to help keep the steam in and at a constant high temperature. Steam is hotter than boiling water.

How long do they take to cook? That depends on how many mussels are cooking, the size of your pot and how much heat you can give it, but about 5 or 6 mins perhaps? After 5 mins, carefully lift the lid (if you use a glass lid then it's better because you can see what's happening) and give the mussels a stir or a shake and see how they're doing.

How do you know when they are cooked?

1) All the shells will have opened.
2) The mussel flesh will no longer be translucent and will have detached itself from one side of the shell.

If they are not quite ready, give them another shake or a stir, replace the lid and check again in a couple of minutes. Don't overcook them because they get rubbery.

IMPORTANT Remove and throw away any mussels that haven't opened after cooking. Why? Because they were dead before they were cooked and are poisonous. Don't be tempted to force open and eat any mussels that are still closed after cooking because you will get very, very sick - I know this from personal experience!  

When the mussels are fully-cooked, turn down the heat to a simmer and scatter in the parsley and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper (you don't have to add the pepper).  Mix or shake and then serve in large bowls by scooping out the mussels with a slotted spoon and then ladling on the mussel liquor at an amount to taste. Some people like a lot of "mussel juice" to dunk their French bread into!  Serve immediately.

To accompany, fresh rustic bread,  a bowl of green salad and a few French fries is always a good combo.

What else can you cook mussels with?  How about chilli's or chopped tomatoes & basil or curry powder, beer or salmon to name but a few themes.  Have a look at a few recipes on-line.     

Chef  Domaine La Royale, Villardonnel, Southern France.  
"Why don't mussels give anything to charity? "  (answer at the bottom of the page)

Because they're too shellfish  :-))