Recipe: mussels with champagne
Boiled, fried, stir-fried or raw. In a pita, with champagne or Catalan-style: Piet Devriendt, mussel chef at Oesterput restaurant on the Belgian coast, comes up with the most incredible recipes featuring the small sea creature. Such as this recipe for ‘Moules à la champagne’.
You don’t need to cook the mussels beforehand. The so-called ‘moules parquées’ are arranged neatly in a row (hence the name) and grilled with the champagne sauce.
How to make the champagne sauce
Finely chop the shallot, sauté in a little butter and deglaze with the juice of a lemon, the white wine and cognac. Let it reduce briefly, then add the champagne and cream. Add the cornflour and reduce for 5 minutes.
How to make the moules parquées
Take a mussel between your thumb and index finger and push it open sideways. Through the resulting gap, slide a small kitchen knife along the inside of the shell. Above this, cut through the adductor muscle.
Then slide the knife along the edge until the mussel meat comes loose, and then cut through the underside of the adductor muscle as well. If you don’t manage it with the first mussel, don’t worry. Practice makes perfect!
Arrange the mussels in a mussel dish and pour a thin layer of sauce over them. Grill until the sauce turns golden brown.
Image: Ann-Sophie Deldycke
Find more delicious mussel recipes in:
Mussels | Piet and Robbe Devriendt | € 24.99 | Carrera Culinair
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