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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2010 21:57:40 GMT
I popped into the supermarket on my way home tonight without any idea of what I wanted to buy or to eat for dinner. However, when I rounded the first corner and saw the packages of fresh mussels, I knew I had to have them. I was on my way to making moules marinières, but did I have the proper ingredients? This Spanish white wine should do for a start. Any cheap dry white wine will do for this dish. Okay, I knew I didn’t have celery or shallots, but maybe something could replace them. Aha! I had chervil and chives. Close enough for me. Just have to chop them up until I’m ready for them. Salt and pepper, no problem, but I see that I should think about getting some more coarse sea salt before long to put in my Polish pickle jar. Onion. There should be some onion. Half an onion should be enough. Chop it up. Butter! The cooking part starts with butter. I have a new package ready to go into the pot. This slice should be enough. That’s not looking bad at all. Time to add the wine. Things have calmed down in the pot. I wonder if I used too much? Nah, that’ll be fine. Just have to let it start boiling again. I’ll open the package of mussels in the meantime. In they go, and cover for about 10 minutes while all the little critters give up and gape open. Time’s up. Let’s ladle them into a bowl. Wow, that’s really good and the broth is spectacular! Where did they go?
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Post by cristina on Mar 3, 2010 22:03:09 GMT
Damn it. I was ready to tell you that I'd be right over.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 3, 2010 22:09:01 GMT
my mouth water.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 3, 2010 22:35:37 GMT
You took the words right out of my (watering) mouth, Annie!
Kerouac, you are a REAL cook. Almost anyone can buy all the ingredients in a recipe and put them together correctly. But it is the true cook who takes a spark of inspiration and mixes it with informed, almost instinctive use of what's on hand to turn out KILLER GRUB.
My god, that must have been yummy!
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Post by lola on Mar 4, 2010 1:57:12 GMT
Wonderful, K. Walking us through it makes it seem so possible. Now if I could scrape up the 5,69 €.
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Post by Theresa on Mar 4, 2010 2:56:54 GMT
Damn it. I was ready to tell you that I'd be right over. ;D I am so grateful to have found this page. Thank you so much for posting this. And I loved the directions/pictures of the mussels. Where's my invite? Thanks again. Theresa in Detroit.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 4, 2010 18:56:01 GMT
Just one quibble. Do you really add salt? Perhaps Mediterranean mussels are different but I find them almost too salty.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2010 19:06:10 GMT
Not much salt. And coarse sea salt is not very salty anyway because it isn't very pure. But it's true that the Mediterranean is much more salty than the northern Atlantic Ocean.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 4, 2010 21:06:38 GMT
I have a lovely recipe that uses a bed of spinach, mussels out of their shells on top, a sauce of the mussel liquor, cream and roquefort. But the mussel liquor and the roquefort make it too salty.
I should have brought back mussels from Paris yesterday.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2010 21:13:49 GMT
Roquefort is an extremely salty item. I often forget just how salty it is.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 4, 2010 21:26:16 GMT
Have you ever tried the recipe with more of everything except the roquefort, Baz? It seems to have too much promise to discard it entirely.
Much as I love strong blue cheeses, even a bite of roquefort that's just a little too big kind of scalds the tongue with salt.
Kerouac, does your supermarket carry fresh mussels all the time? Also, why don't they smother in that container? Does it have holes in it?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2010 21:55:38 GMT
None of my supermarkets has a real seafood counter, so it was even a surprise to find vacuum packed fresh mussels. It's a risk for them, because I don't think that a lot of the immigrant clientele eats such things -- they need food that sticks to the ribs more.
Naturally, the fishmongers at the market sell mussels and all of the traditional stuff but at 3 times the price. Luckily, I have lived in France long enough to know that the vacuum packed mussels are just as good, so I leave the major spending of money to the ignorant.
I had mussels with lardons in a restaurant a few months ago, and in my opinion, that is as much of a mistake as mussels with roquefort.
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Post by Jazz on Mar 4, 2010 22:04:46 GMT
yummm!!!! Tomorrow I'm having my nephew for dinner and he will get your delicious mussel dish with a fresh salad. But, I think I will add the generous dollop of sour cream. The mussels I buy are in a net bag are are very inexpensive, about 4Euro...
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 4, 2010 22:18:04 GMT
kerouasc, I do assure you that mussels in a cream sauce with roquefort on a bed of spinach is a great dish.
I may force it on you when you visit these parts.
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Post by existentialcrisis on Mar 5, 2010 1:24:51 GMT
I'm a mussel purist, so I like them plain with butter or garlic butter dipping sauce. But I also really enjoy them the way you made them! Wine is always good!
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 5, 2010 2:26:14 GMT
Thanks for that, Jack. I haven't had mussels like that for ages!
One more advantage of buying vacuum packed mussels is that they're cleaned already.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 5, 2010 3:57:38 GMT
So no one is going to answer my question about asphyxiating the poor molluscs?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2010 5:50:45 GMT
They are already dead in that container, in my opinion, the same as frozen mussels. I would imagine there is an inert gas to keep them from evolving.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 5, 2010 7:20:07 GMT
Hmmm. But above you say, "In they go, and cover for about 10 minutes while all the little critters give up and gape open." They would not be closed were they not alive, which means they're alive in the package.
That picture when you first take the lid off -- "you have to stir them up a little from time to time." is just deliciously beautiful.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 5, 2010 7:37:26 GMT
They're in a shocked, frozen state right after they get caught, Bixa, their intake of oxygen is minimal, they're sort of hibernating until they hit Jack's bubbling hot white wine. Then they wake up, take a huge gulp of air and close their eyes to be silenced forever. Maybe their little souls shreek on their way to mussel heaven but that is something brainier people than I will have to contemplate.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2010 7:49:40 GMT
Actually, I think the opening is just a mechanical effect caused by the heat, whether they are alive or dead. The frozen ones are most definitely dead, yet they react the same as fresh mussels when you cook them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 5, 2010 16:11:12 GMT
You never heard of cryogenics, Kerouac? HW's explanation has the ring of cosmic truth. Guess I'll be standing in line behind the Walrus and the Carpenter at the last judgment, awaiting sentence for all the live, quivering oysters, or tortured-with-heat clams and mussels that have gone down my gullet.
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Post by gertie on Mar 6, 2010 2:20:54 GMT
Reminds me of my first foray into cooking a lobster, helping my mother when I was young. I genuinely believed it was going to scream insanely at me and my family had quite a lot of amusement over that. Sorry, just had to add what a wonderful cooking report, kerouac, but I seem to have misplaced my invite.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 6, 2010 18:31:32 GMT
I was told the ones that didn't open were the ones that were dead before being put into the water and so you should never try to eat these or you'd get ill. also, I was told the ones already open before cooking were dead and shouldn't be added to the pot.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2010 18:47:26 GMT
Everybody has heard that, but I think that perhaps modern handling of mussels makes some of those rules obsolete. I would imagine that the open ones are tossed long before they go on sale. As for the ones that don't open, they are so rare that it doesn't bother anybody to pitch them into the empty shell pot without risk of going hungry.
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Post by existentialcrisis on Mar 6, 2010 20:56:45 GMT
I saw a similar package of mussels in the grocery store yesterday and it actually said "Live Mussels" on the package... and I was wondering how they could be alive. But I guess we figured it out?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2012 6:30:14 GMT
I am definitely going to make some mussels this week. The supermarkets are full of those packages all ready to go.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 16, 2012 0:36:01 GMT
Do you make mussels just for yourself, Jack?
I love moules marinières, but for me it is a dish to be shared with at least one friend. I guess we are funny that way.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2012 6:02:42 GMT
I have learned to eat many things alone that are better shared.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2013 22:59:42 GMT
I had the occasion to resurrect this thread elsewhere, and I am salivating once again, even though I had an excellent dinner. Gluttony is a terrible affliction.
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