Mouclade- and other shellfish dishes

I do love mussels. They would be my desert island food of choice (which is probably quite sensible really as they are likely to be swimming around somewhere close by wherever I am marooned.)

I love their smell, their texture, their taste, their versatility - and their price.

They are still an inexpensive seafood - that you can make into a variety of dishes. I bought a bag at my local fishmongers for £3.70- and this is what I did with them.

Firstly, I wanted to make a mouclade or mussel stew with a curry cream sauce. Normally, I prefer moules marinieres as I think the addition of cream often makes the sauce too thick and cools it down too quickly. I'm pleased to report that this didn't happen with this recipe.

For the mouclade you will need:

250g mussels per person
1 onion finely chopped
1clove of garlic (minced)
Parsley stalks (chopped) for sauce and parsley leaves (finely chopped) for garnish
1 glass dry white wine
2 tbsp single cream
2 tsp curry powder or paste

First, wash the mussels in several changes of water and then scrub them with a scouring pad to remove any grit from the shells. Discard any which are open (and don't close when you manhandle them) and any which are damaged.

Pull off their little beards and place the mussels in a colander.

Soften the onion and garlic in some olive oil in a large heavy based saucepan. (I use the pan of my pressure cooker). Pour in the wine and add the parsley stalks and bring to the boil.

A minute or two more on these

Shoot in the mussels and cover with a lid or plate.

Cook on a moderate heat for 4-5 minutes, then give the pan a good shake and open up to see if the mussels are all open. If not, give them a minute or two more.

Meanwhile, mix the cream with the curry powder or paste until all the grains are dissolved.

Ladle the mussels into bowls, pour over the cream and curry mixture and garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with bread and lime wedges to squeeze over.

Mouclade

Pour the leftover mussels into a plastic container and allow to cool before covering and refrigerating. They will need to be eaten over the next 2 days.

The next day- either have them as a starter with a drizzle of persillade over each one as here. (Persillade is a garlicky sauce made from garlic cloves, olive oil, parsley and a little salt pulsed together in a blender or smushed in a pestle and mortar- I'm not specifying how much garlic as that is entirely up to you.)

Heroes in a half-shell

Or make them into a seafood pastotto.

This is my own invention of a pasta risotto- using orzo or pasta shaped like rice/oat grains (called avoines in French).

You will need:
70g-80g of pasta per person
your remaining mussels pulled out of their shells (but keep a few in their shells for garnish)
any cooking liquor from the mussels
1 tin or jar of chopped tomato with chili
1 onion (finely chopped)

Begin, as usual by softening the onion in some olive oil. Add the pasta to the frying onion and stir to absorb the oil.
Add a good glug of tomato and the cooking liquor from the mussels.
Stir (and keep stirring) to absorb the liquid. Add more as you need to.

Taste the pasta- it needs to be the soft side of al dente before it is ready.
When it has reached this stage, stir through the mussels to warm them in the pasta.

Serve in bowls with the reserved mussels as garnish.

Seafood Pastotto

Other recipes on the blog featuring shellfish are shown below with a link to the blog pages where the recipes can be found.

                               

                                    http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/fritto%20misto

                                http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/smoked%20salmon                

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/crab%20cakes

                                    http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/veggie-makeover.html


So there you have it- seafood recipes that taste like a million dollars- but you won't need to shell out that much to make and enjoy them!

Week 39- Sussex Winter Recipes

The soggy autumn draws to a close- and there is a definite nip in the air this morning.

Time to dig out the hats, scarves and gloves - and have some hearty winter menus.






Back in June, I came up with some Sussex summer recipes- so now, at the change of season, I've researched some winter fare.

To start, I'm suggesting Beachy Head crab cakes with a sweet chili dipping sauce, followed by a Chiddingly hotpot and finished off with biscuits and cheese- Windmill Hill thin biscuits in fact.

Beachy Head lighthouse emerging from the mist

Beachy Head is a beautiful and eerie place- the land ends abruptly as if sliced with a huge knife and the white cliff drops down vertically to the sea. Alas, this lovely place has a sad reputation as it is a favoured spot for tortured souls to throw themselves off,

The Beachy Head chaplain is always there- talking to walkers and worriers alike. One of life's unsung heroes.http://www.bhct.org.uk/wp/ Just this week the team responded to 8 different incidents - and saved those lives. Nobody died here this week.

Less well known, the seas around the cliff are home to some of the finest crab and lobster in the country.

I've used this crab for my starter. Take 120g of crab meat (you can always use a tin of course), 100g of cooked peeled prawns, 2 slices of stale bread, 1 teaspoon each of finely chopped garlic, finely chopped red chili and ginger and some parsley or coriander. Blitz the whole lot in a food processor and pour into a bowl. Add a dash of light soy sauce (or Thai fish sauce if you have it) and mix together. Shape into little cakes with wet hands, chill in the fridge for half an hour

Chill the crab cakes before baking

 and then place on an oiled baking tray. Bake at 190 degrees for 15 minutes or so until lightly brown and serve with a sweet chili dipping sauce.

Beachy Head crab cakes

The next recipe I found in a magazine. It is a hotpot of beef and potatoes- surprisingly with olives. The flavours and textures work really well though. According to the research, this recipe was devised by Mr Edward Shoosmith of Chiddingly in East Sussex in 1917. It is a beef casserole with a layer of thinly sliced potato running through the middle, and then again on the top. The casserole is enriched with olives (which are now grown in Sussex.www.sussex-olives.com). The potatoes in the middle are soft, whilst those on the top are crispy. Try it- it's delicious.

I used leftover beef casserole to make this dish - but you can make it from scratch and let it cook for 2-3 hours.

I mixed olives into my leftover casserole. I layered casserole, potatoes, casserole, potatoes in a gratin dish and baked it in a moderate oven for an hour until the potatoes on top were brown and crispy.

Chiddingly Hotpot

The dessert is a cheeseboard. Excellent cheeses are now apparently made in Sussex- www.goldencrosscheese.co.uk- if you like goat or sheep cheese.

The biscuit recipe intrigued me though (from a book of old Sussex recipes). It is simple and quick and uses hardly any ingredients but produces lovely little crisp biscuits that you can flavour any way you want. There are windmills all over Sussex- so a recipe involving flour shouldn't surprise me really.

Windmill Hill windmill

You need just 75g of flour, 20g of butter, 1/2 tsp of baking powder. a pinch of salt and milk to mix.

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients. Mix to a soft dough with the milk. Roll out very thinly and cut into shapes. Brush with a little more milk and bake until golden and crisp.

Decorate as you wish- I used pumpkin seeds and fleur de sel.

Windmill hill thin biscuits and cheeseboard

So there you have it, my Sussex winter menu. That should warm the cockles. (Plenty of those in Sussex too...)