So, we made mussels for French Fridays with Dorie. Again. We’ve made the classic Moules Marinière before and there have been a few other dishes I seem to have conveniently left the “optional” mussels out of, ahem. This pasta dish, for example. I just don’t like the flavour or texture of them, though Mr Neil is a fan, so he’s been happy to help me as I work my way through the book. Especially when I cook them properly and they have a ton of flavour, like these ones! That’s right, I may not like mussels (and believe me, I have tried them – lived in Brussels for a year where “moules-frites” is a specialty and still didn’t like them!) but I can certainly learn to cook them for other people, right? This iteration has onions, shallots, red pepper flakes and curry powder in a white-wine cream sauce. I sent Mr Neil off to buy one portion (we have a fishmonger at the end of our street) and he was a happy camper last Sunday at lunchtime!
Get the recipe for Dorie Greenspan’s curried mussels on p 313 of Around my French Table.
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You get extra points for making these even though you don’t like them. I love mussels, but even so I was actually a bit skeptical about this one. I have previously thought that my favorite preparation was the classic and with curry sounded somehoe odd. Now I know better, these were easily our favorite!
I thought the prep sounded odd too but the sauce was really tasty (I did try that!).
Once again, you’re a good sport for making these! Lucky Mr. Neil, though 🙂
It’s lucky this was an easy dish to minify too!
Poor Mardi- January is a rough month for you, isn’t it?
But I am learning all these fishy skillz 😉
January is definitely a bad month if you don’t do fish! Bill and I both enjoyed the mussels, but I had to make them sans curry! I’m already planning a make up for the Ceviche…thats where I draw the line! Have a great week Mardi!
Just find someone who will eat the ceviche – where’s your spirit of adventure? 😉 My friends have been happy recipients of dishes I couldn’t minify and that I didn’t like!
Mr. Neil is super-excited about the next six weeks’ iterations of FFWD, so enough whingeing out there. 😉
On a frightfully cold winter day, these were just wonderful. The curry flavouring was intense, but not at all overpowering of the sweet mussels. In fact, it was good I picked up a baguette as well, as sopping up the broth was essential – and made for a filling dish.
Not six weeks left, just a few more fishy things so don’t get too excited! Glad you enjoyed these!
Fish and seafood are my favorite foods so it’s hard for me to image not linking them. You were very kind to make them for Mr. Neil. Mussels are tough smell etc for a nonfish lover.
I would have made them even if Neil didn’t eat them and found someone who did! Can’t miss a week!
That made me laugh, Mardi. I’m not the biggest fan of them, either, yet French hubby and kids adore them, but I’m an awful Mum and never cook them – if they want them, it’s at a restaurant 😉 Perhaps it’s in my blood… my mother doesn’t like them yet came from the Scottish town of …. Musselburgh! Go figure.
Normally I am like that with foods Neil likes and I don’t but here I really wanted to cook them properly! All in the name of Dorie!
Mardi, they look great, and as long as someone enjoys it, that is all that matters. Jim does not do
mussels since he had a bad experience in Brussels so I don’t even bother attempting any recipe with them, unless Tricia and the boys are around. I can improvise any recipe if I want and eliminate the stuff we can’t eat. Yours look wonderful especially with that french bread.
Yes you definitely need to bread for the sauce and other people to eat them if you don’t!
How lucky to have a fish-monger so close by!
It is great to have someone to pick up the tasting on items you are adverse to – I have that issue with lamb, just cannot develop a taste for it.
Happy New Year!
Yes we are lucky in that sense re: the fishmonger! And This book has thrilled my friends who are often recipients of Dorie food or guests at Dorie dinners!
Mardi, you have been a trooper this month. After next week, you get a dessert reprieve! I’ll bet you can’t wait. At least Mr. Neil is happy.
Well I mean it would have been odd to cook my way through the book and love everything! I’m more of the mindset that at least I am learning new skills!
Kudos to you for making the mussels. I may try the sauce recipe with clams or shrimp some day. Have a great weekend!
I think the sauce would be fabulous with shrimp!
Dear Mardi, your presentation is so very pretty and, yes, you get lots of extra credit for making these Curried Mussels although you do not enjoy them that much at all! I am glad that my taste testers loved these!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Andrea
Well they really are so easy to prepare, I couldn’t skip just because *I don’t like them!
Like father, like daughter.
I wouldn’t worry if I never saw another mussel again. But, good for you for persevering.
Right? Ugh. But they ARE easy to cook – I reckon even you would be able to cook them!
I think it’s very, very difficult, Mardi, to make a recipe that you know you are not going to enjoy eating yourself. I cannot think of an example of when I have done that, So, hats off to you for doing that as we work through this cookbook. Your qualify for the Good Sports department. BTW, I now have a bottle of sunflower oil (instead of canola), a eye dropper (which I found in a sample of a nail polish product). No, I did use it for nails. Now I just have to buy pomegranate juice and I’ll be good to go with creating my own caviar. That just seems ingenuous to me and I want to be able to do it.
Well it’s a good lesson in a new technique, anyway, that’s what I tell myself. I’m too far into this book to *not* make something I don’t like, right? And I can’t wait to see your caviar 🙂
I agree with your opinions of mussels. You are very nice to make them for Mr. Neil. On to next week.
Well, he’s a good sport about this blogging thing so….
All these years, I’d never had mussels.
For the first time last night, I finally got to try them and they were amazing.
Now, add curry?
O
M
G
Yes I think the curry would definitely be the way to go here!