Silverknife

A repost from March 2007

I've never cooked mussels before, always eyed them with interest on the fish stall at the market but never plucked up the courage - to be honest I also thought they'd be very pricy. But last week I finally got round to a proper read-through of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, noting down recipes which interested me, and he has three very tasty-looking recipes for mussels, so Saturday morning I finally bought a netful.

They turned out to be very economical - just £3.95 for a big net. I didn't count them but there were enough for myself, my girlfriend and a good lump frozen for a future meal (after cooking of course - you can't freeze them beforehand as they must be alive when you cook them).

Naturally I had the usual concerns about freshness, the risk of sickness etc., but the fish guy on Bedford market has never yet sold me anything but the best quality product, so I wasn't too worried. The general rule, for those who don't know, is to throw out any mussels which aren't tightly closed, or which don't immediately close when you tap them. Out of this big batch there was only one which fitted that description, so I was pretty confident.

They're rather beautiful things, with gleaming black shells encrusted with little limpets and things, and a satisfying weight to them. The annoying part is preparing them. Each one has to be "bearded" (they have a hairy strand which protrudes from the concave side of the shell, and which must be pulled off just before cooking), and scrubbed. That takes quite a while, I'd guess about 30-40 minutes to prepare this batch for us. Obviously I'm fairly inexperienced but I don't think you could make it much faster.

All round this dish was ridiculously simple to make, I'd encourage anyone to try it. I mostly used Tony's recipe for Moules Normandes (Mussels Normandy-style), with two major exceptions - I couldn't get hold of any Calvados (apple brandy) at short notice so I just sloshed in some white wine. Didn't seem to hurt. And I couldn't find any shallots so I substituted with garlic and onion (shallots are somewhere in between flavour-wise).

Mussels, one netful - weighed a bit less than 2 pounds.
Bacon (I bought a nice cheap pack of "bacon misshapes", and cut off about 6 cubic inches of good chunky stuff) in small cubes.
4 tablespoons of butter
1 shallot, thinly sliced (or substitute with a bit of onion and some garlic)
6 small mushrooms, thinly sliced
Half an apple, peeled, cored and cut into chunks (I used a bit extra due to not having Calvados)
75ml Calvados (or in my case a glass of white wine)
1 tall tub of double cream (can never remember how much they hold).
Salt and pepper.

Prep is simple - just cook the bacon in a pan (no extra fat needed if it's good fatty stuff, which I had) for about 10 minutes till it's well browned. Actually it took about 20 minutes because it was nasty British bacon and it took 10 minutes to cook off all the water. Eugh. But it was nice when done.

Meanwhile in a large pot (I used my stockpot, and this recipe half-filled it) cook the butter over a medium/high heat until it foams, then add the shallot (or whatever) and cook it till transparent. Add the mushrooms and apple and cook it all for 5 minutes, then slosh in the booze, which should deglaze the pan nicely. Stir in the cream and add salt and pepper. Then once it's all boiling, add the mussels and cook for ten minutes, or until all the mussels are opened. Shake it, cook for another couple of minutes, shake again and serve.

Now, that's pretty much how Tony had it. Have you spotted the deliberate mistake? Yup, he doesn't mention what to do with the bacon. Now, assuming he doesn't intend you just to cook it alongside so the aroma wafts into the pot and subtly affects the flavour, I put it in at the same time as the mussels, and the effect was gorgeous so I'm happy. I also added a step which Anthony didn't mention (but I'm sure he would have done himself if he was cooking it) - deglazed the bacon pan with a slosh of the white wine and poured it in. Flavour city.

Tony's recipe actually uses all the same quantities but for 6 pounds of mussels. In that case you wouldn't get the "chowder" at the bottom, it's up to you whether you want to scale up for that reason. One thing I would suggest if you're using my quantities is stirring instead of shaking - it's doable if you're only cooking 2 pounds, and it would mix the sauce through without shaking half of the mussels out of their shells!