Classic Moules Marinières

Classic Moules marinières, where do you start? Who do you look to as an authority for the perfect Moules marinières recipe? My shelves are groaning with cookery books by experts on classical French Cuisine and seafood cookery. Every author interprets differently. So, here’s the rub: there is room to experiment and find out if you prefer onions to shallots. What type of white wine do you prefer? And most controversially, do you add cream, mayonnaise or crème fraîche? OK, that may be going a bit too far. I don’t add cream to my classic Moules marinières; the butter is enough to make the cooking liquids luxurious.

A little bit of Moules marinières history

Mussels have long been an important part of the cuisine of coastal France. In Brittany and Normandy, they were a cheap, abundant source of protein. They have been cultivated on wooden piles driven deep into the seabed for around a thousand years, called bouchots.  This leaves the mussels exposed to the air twice a day as the tide recedes. They are orange in colour and small and sweet. The best bouchot mussels are said to come from Saint-Brieuc and the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel.

Moules marinière could be cooked quickly in a single pot by the dockside or indeed on a boat. In fact, the name means ‘sailor-like’. It comes from a blouse-like shirt or stripy jumper of the same name that French sailors wore*. From a simple sailor dish, Moules marinière, by the nineteenth century, was eaten in fine Parisian restaurants. The dish is now eaten around the world in French restaurants and bistros.

*Interestingly, here in the Channel Islands, fishermen wore Guernsey’s and Jersey’s. These were robust, heavy-duty wool jumpers. The five-ply knitted wool formed a warm, waterproof, breathable piece of clothing. Vital protection for fishing in the Channel and North Sea. The fabric even caught the attention of Coco Chanel, who owned a Jersey knit wool day suit.

If you liked this traditional French recipe for mussels, you may want to try; Moules à la Normande made with cider and bacon, Mouclade with a creamy, curry-spiced sauce or Mussels with anise-flavoured Pastis.

My Classic Moules marinières

Allow 400 gr to 650 gr of mussels per person for a generous portion of Moules marinières. To prepare your mussels, first rinse them with plenty of cold running water. Throw away any mussels with cracked or broken shells. Give any open mussels a quick squeeze if they do not close immediately; throw them away. As they are dead and not to be eaten. Then, using a small knife, scrape the shell to remove any barnacles or dirt. Pull out any beards by tugging towards the hinge of the mussel shell. If you intend to cook them later that day, cover with a damp tea towel. Then store them in a plastic container at the bottom of your refrigerator.