Moules Mariniere. What we had last night for dinner and was delicious;
Full bulb of garlic.
Half a bottle of dry white wine.
About 8 shallots.
Good bunch of fresh curly parsley.
350-400ml of fish stock.
Pot of cream. (Single or double for a richer texture).
Knob of butter.
Crusty bread.
As many mussels as you think you’d need. We used 400g of Spanish mussels last night.
So make your fishtock using stock cubes. For about 400 ml, three is about right.
Very finely dice the shallots, crush all but three cloves of garlic and chop the parsley.
With the cloves left, slice them thinly.
Grab a medium to large based saucepan.
Fry the shallots in the butter for a few minutes until sweating, then add the crushed garlic.
Fry again until sweating but not browning.
Add the wine to the hot pan and then add parsley keeping a good pinch back for now.
Add the sliced garlic.
Then add the fish stock and cream and allow to cook on a low heat with the lid on for about one hour.
It’s normal for everything to separate as you want it to curdle. Eventually it will come together.
Keep stirring regularly and add some black pepper.
Taste and adjust the seasoning as you go. You shouldn’t need salt but season to taste.
Finally add the last handful of parsley and keep a sprinkle back for decoration, add the mussels and cook thoroughly.
Ditch any that don’t open.
Or what you can also do is cook them separately in water, then add some of that water into the sauce.
If doing that, cook until they open and discard any that don’t. Drain them and add them to the sauce for about 3-4 minutes or until ready to serve.
Then serve with a sprinkle of parsley, crusty bread and good wine.
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