Moules marinière a la crème? . . . ah non!

The French are a proud bunch. So proud, they are intolerant of lesser beings bastardising all that they hold so dear - and rightfully so. Some of the best food and drink has come out of France, not to mention some of the most exquisite cooking techniques. So a spin on a classic French recipe would never be as good as the real thing. Or would it?

Shell fish on the local fishmonger's slab - FishWorks

I am a great fan of mussels. They are easy to cook, great to eat and pretty affordable. With farmed mussels available on the fishmonger's slab, they are also pretty sustainable. More accurately, these are 'cultured' mussels. Artificial mussel bed are created by suspending chains, netting or ropes under buoys in pristine lagoons and the mussels naturally attach themselves to these and fatten up on plankton. Cultured mussels, because they are suspended in water rather than being attached to rocks, are also less gritty. The last time I bought mussels, I found tucked away among them a couple of limpets. No points for guessing where they ended up. All in all, there is a good case to go cultured. In the past I have used New Zealand green-lipped mussels, which are much larger. But they come half-shelled and frozen - where's the fun in that. 

You know you are a regular when the fishmonger knows exactly
what you are cooking and throws in the condiments for good measure

Many people would be pretty surprised if they saw what we Indians do with our shellfish. The idea of a lobster or clam curry, with strong flavours and intense heat, might even sound like a complete waste of precious ingredients to some. And though a massive fan of coastal Indian cooking, I can empathise with this view. I like to think of shellfish as ready parcels of goodness that are at their best when not fiddled around with too much. Moules marinière is almost as simple as it gets. However, I thought we had already established that we were not doing things like the French.



I first cooked this recipe with a French Canadian - he, as is often the case, learnt it from his grandmother. I have changed the recipe a bit because I wasn't a 100% convinced with ability to translate the names of ingredients from French to English. However, the main addition is that of double cream. This leaves you with a nice creamy dunking liquid for your bread - preferably a lightly buttered baguette.

You need:

(Serves 4)

• 3 kilos of mussels, barnacles and beards removed, rinsed. Tap the open ones on the kitchen counter. If they do not close, bin them, they as dead as Michael Jackson. To be entirely honest with you, if the dead ones don't look like they have been gone for long, I just pot them.
• 2 large banana shallots, finely chopped
• 200ml of double cream, roughly
• as much garlic as you like
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• knob of butter
• a couple of glasses of white wine (if you wouldn't bother drinking it, then don't bother cooking with it)
• salt to taste. Be careful with the salt. Mussels are naturally salty and if you have used salted butter then you might just want a pinch.
• wedge of lemon for garnish. It more than just a garnish. A squeeze will cut through the richness of the cream beautifully.

Keep all your ingredients at hand as once. once you get going this recipe is pretty bang bang.

1. melt the butter in a large sauce pan, add the shallots followed by the garlic
2. before the garlic burns, add the mussels followed by the glass of wine and the bay leaf. Cover. Hob on high.
3. shake the pan every 30-45 seconds
4. as the mussels start to open add the cream and season
5. once the mussels open fully, turn off the hob and add the parsley. From the time you put in the mussels it should only take you about 3-4 minutes
6. enjoy with the remainder of that bottle of wine



There is this rule about not eating the ones that haven't opened. Trust you me, pry them open and get involved. Every once in a while you might get one that is a little extra fishy, but that's what that remaining bottle of wine is for.