Moules Marinieres (Mussels)

First published Aug 23, 2012

Mussels have always intimidated me... they seemed posh and complicated.  I am here to tell you they are neither!  I got a reasonable amount at the fishmonger for no more than you'd pay for chicken breasts... and they are dead easy to make!
All of this is made possible by the fabulous Stephanie Alexander.  Her stripy book, Cook's Companion, is so familiar in bookstores and homeware stores, but it's only recently that I have picked it up to have a look. Again, I think the book intimidated me as it is over 1000 pages long!  It's subtitled "The complete book of ingredients and recipes for the Australian kitchen"... and is structured according to ingredients.  No problem to find a mussel recipe when you have a craving!

Moules Marinieres with Linguine (adapted from Cook's Companion)

Ingredients
2 kg mussels in the shell, cleaned
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
A few peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
A few parsley stalks
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1/2 cup cream
Linguine

Method
Get the ingredients prepared for the mussels.
Put water on to boil, and add pasta
When your pasta is halfway finished, add mussels to a pot/wok that has a tight fitting lid.
Add shallots, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, parsley and wine.  (Wine should reach a depth of 1-2 cm.)  Turn on to high heat.
In 4-5 minutes, the mussels should be steamed open.  Remove open ones with tongs and transfer to a hot dish.  Leave any unopened ones a bit longer to open, otherwise toss out.
By this time your pasta will be ready to drain.
Strain off the sauce into a bowl... then add some strained juices back to the saucepan.  You want to strain off any leftover gunk off the mussels, and leave the sand behind in the strained juices.  (If you want, you can add some of the shallots back to the sauce as well, taking care not to take any debris with it.)
Add cream to the juices on the stove and heat till it bubbles.  Toss in the pasta to coat.
Place pasta in a bowl, sprinkle with a bit of sea salt.  Add mussels and sprinkle dish with chopped Italian parsley.

Mussels are an easy, special, weeknight dinner.