French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [183]
Clean and cook them as explained above. Remove from the shells, thread them on skewers, alternating each mussel with a little square of bacon. Sprinkle with flour, then roll the brochettes in beaten egg, then in very fine breadcrumbs. All these preparations can be done in advance.
When the time comes to cook them, heat a wide pan of oil to smoking point, plunge in the brochettes; about a minute will cook them.
Serve as quickly as possible. La Mère Nénette serves a few little gaufrette potatoes and a béarnaise sauce with the brochettes. The potatoes could, I think, be dispensed with, and alternatives to the béarnaise sauce are mayonnaise or even vinaigrette.
MOULES À L’ARMORICAINE
MUSSELS WITH ONION AND TOMATO
For a quart of small mussels, the other ingredients are a medium-sized onion, 2 large tomatoes, butter.
In a heavy frying-pan melt the butter; put in the roughly chopped onion and let it turn golden. Add the skinned and chopped tomatoes. Then put in the cleaned and scrubbed mussels, without any other liquid. Turn up the flame and cook until the mussels are open, shaking the pan from time to time so that the sauce gets evenly distributed among the mussels. Serve boiling hot immediately the mussels are open. Add freshly-milled pepper as you bring them to table.
Enough for two.
MOULES À LA MARSEILLAISE
MUSSELS WITH SHALLOTS AND OLIVE OIL
Put a couple of finely-chopped shallots in a saucepan with half a claret glass of water and 3 or 4 tablespoons of very good olive oil. Bring it very quickly to an absolutely galloping boil (this is the principle also applied to the cooking of a bouillabaisse—it is essential that the oil and water be rapidly amalgamated). Put in a quart of cleaned mussels and cook fast until they open. Sprinkle with roughly-chopped parsley and serve in very hot soup plates with all their juice. Enough for two.
MOULES À LA PROVENÇALE
‘Wash the mussels well several times, changing the water so as to cleanse them thoroughly; put them dry in a saucepan over a hot fire, till the shells open. Take off one valve of the shell only. Put into a saucepan half a glass of oil, parsley, chives, mushrooms, truffles, half a clove of garlic, all chopped very fine. Put it on the fire. Moisten it with a glass of white wine, a spoonful of broth and half the quantity of liquor from the mussels. Boil this sauce, and when it is nearly reduced to half, add the mussels, with a spoonful of gravy; let the whole boil a few minutes; then add a spoonful of lemon juice, pepper and grated nutmeg, then serve.’
Dictionnaire Général de la Cuisine Française Ancienne et Moderne, 1866 edition
MOULES AU RIZ À LA BASQUAISE
MUSSELS WITH SPICED RICE
1 teacups of long-grained Patna rice, 2 teacups of light chicken, veal or fish stock and teacup of olive oil, half a raw red or green sweet pepper, 3 to 4 oz. of chorizo sausage (or other coarsely-cut pork sausage of the type to be bought in delicatessens), 2 pints of mussels, a few prawns, paprika pepper.
Boil the rice for 7 minutes in plenty of water, without salt. Drain it, and hold the colander under the running cold tap until all starch is washed away.
Put it in an earthenware or other oven dish with the stock, the olive oil, the sausage cut into little cubes, the pepper, freed of all seeds and core, sliced into thin rounds, and a teaspoon of paprika pepper, which is the nearest we can get to the piment basquais—it is not so very different. Bring to simmering point on top of the stove. Cover with a folded cloth, a lid, and put in a moderate oven, Gas No. 4, 350 deg. F. In 20 to 25 minutes the rice will have absorbed all the liquid and be beautifully cooked and well spiced. Turn on to a hot shallow dish, add the mussels which have been opened over a hot flame with just a little water, and left in their shells, and the prawns gently fried in a little oil. Garnish with quarters of lemon. There should be enough for four.
In small quantities this dish is also excellent cold, as an hors