Moules et Frites

Mmm… Doesn’t that look good?

Well if it doesn’t you’ve obviously never experienced the sheer delight that is moules et frites. (Pronounced mool-A-freet)

What is moules et frites? Strait translation- mussels and fries. The  mussels are steamed in aromatic white wine and butter, then served, shell and all, in this as a sauce, with a side of thin, crispy, delicious french fries. Everyone digs the mussles out of their shells with their own little forks (or their fingers, I’m not picky) and it’s an instant party.

It tastes good, it’s all fancy-seaside-french-restaurant feeling, and it’s so easy! (Especially if you have your own deep fryer.)

So the recipes… I made my own version of the moules, based on Julia Child’s method, which I’ve decided is to complicated for modern mussels. If you’re picking them off a pier yourself (which is probably a bad idea with all the pollutants out there these days) you may want to spend the hour of soaking time and get them to “disgorge” their sand, but I don’t think it’s necessary with the mussels you find in the store, in fact, I think it lessens their natural saltiness to much, just a theory.

That brings me to another important fact, the mussels you will be cooking are alive. You want them that way, so they will be fresh and not make you sick… but for me, cooking with something still living for my first time, it was slightly guilt-tripping to hear the soft little noises they made after I cleaned and rinsed them. Maybe it was all in my head, but it sounded like they were making very quite little hissing noises, and it made me a little jumpy. But later I thought how much more humane it is to have quickly steamed them in a delicious smelling broth versus letting them be ripped to pieces in the wild by a hungry seagull, and I felt better.

Moules!

I used about 2 pounds of mussels, which filled my four people up pretty well… but two of them were smaller sized people.

Scrub your mussels in cool running water with a stiff brush and “de-beard” them. To do this, pull off the little tuft on the outer edge of the mussel, if there is one, very few of mine had beards.

Important- throw out any mussels that are open. They are dead and no good.

In a large pot combine around half a stick of butter, two cups of good white wine, one minced shallot, one minced garlic clove, a small handful minced parsley and a tablespoon or so of minced fresh chives. Bring to a boil.

Toss mussels into boiling liquid and steam, shaking once or twice to distribute top to bottom, till they are all open. About 5 minutes.

Discard any mussels that have not opened at this point. They are also not good.

Serve with the broth poured over the mussels and an extra bowl to dump the empties.

Enjoy!

Frites!

The key with good fries is to fry them twice. This way the insides are soft and the outsides are crunchy.

Cut up the amount of russet potatoes you’ll want for eating, I made three potatoes worth. Cut them into 1/4 inch strips.

First frying: Heat a big pot of oil or a deep fryer to 320 degrees and carefully add the potatoes, cook till they are soft when you squeeze one (be careful!) but not browned, around 5 minutes. Remove and drain.

Second frying: Bring the oil up to 360 degrees and then add back the fries and cook till golden, 3 minutes or so. Do this in batches if you need to. Drain on paper towels (or brown paper bags work great).

I serve these with a little fast and easy “aioli”. Just mix up some mayo with a little lemon juice, mashed garlic, and chives to taste. Yummy for dipping and fancy looking to boot!

Did I mention dessert?

Maybe we’ll save that for another day!