Mussels and chips

Or Moules Mariniere. It’s one of my all time favourites. I love mussels. My folks introduced me to them as a kid, probably on one of many trailer tent holidays in France.

To this day, one of my most memorable birthdays took place while we were on holiday in France, in a slightly dodgy café, where men came in trying to sell us leather jackets as we ate.  We had French onion soup, with proper big croutons with Gruyere cheese on top, then had mussels and chips.  A man with an accordion came in, and my mum got him to play happy birthday. I must have been about nine. Amazing.

Anyway, enough of my (slightly wine fuelled) trip down memory lane. The other thing I love about mussels is that they’re so damn easy. A little labour intensive to clean maybe, but very little skill involved!

And the OTHER thing I love about mussels is that they’re so damn cheap! I bought a kilo of them from Waitrose yesterday (hardly known for being cheap and cheerful) and they were about three quid. It was more than enough for two people with hearty appetites, and feels like a proper treat.

The first, and most arduous, bit of tonight’s meal was cleaning them.  Thankfully these were rope grown, so there weren’t many barnacles. Basically the job involves running them under cold water to get any grit or dirt off, knocking any barnacles off with a knife, and pulling off the beards. (see below for a picture of a mussel with a beard) 

If any are open, give them a good tap on the sink/counter.  If they close they’re fine, if they don’t then get rid of them. There’s always a few that need to be discarded.

Finely chop an onion (traditionally it would be shallots) and a clove of garlic, and soften them in some butter on a low heat, so they don’t colour. Then chuck in 100 ml of white wine, the mussels, put the lid on and whack the heat up. They take three to four minutes, with the odd shake of the pan.

Once they’re opened, pour in about 100 ml of cream and a load of chopped parsley and give it a good stir around. That’s it. Really. And they’re brilliant.

I don’t make chips from scratch, due to lack of deep fat fryer/chip pan. Also, we rarely have chips, so the standby frozen skinny fries do me just fine.

And the best bit? Dipping some nice bread in all the juices that are left in the pan. And having a nice glass of white wine with it. Truly awesome. I now need a lie down as I couldn’t resist a third slice of bread to dip.

Note: I can’t claim moules mariniere as my own recipe, but it’s so good I wanted to write about it anyway.