Pulling mussels from the shell

I CAN’T RECALL if I have ever been at the wrong end of a mussel (or should that be a mussel at the wrong end of me?) but I’ve been pretty damn close.

My mussel dish of choice is moules mariniere ( not the miserable sort they serve up with factory frites to unwary tourists off the Grand Place in Brussels) although not all British chefs are aware this does not involve cream.

I can’t stand moules a la creme because I once ate it in a long dead Sheffield restaurant and as the cream went down it revealed an also long dead, rotten, putrid mollusc. It was only by a supreme effort of will that I stopped myself heaving up over the table.

It’s no great shakes producing a creditable version of moiles mariniere although some chains take no chances. When I saw mussels on the menu but was refused them without cream it told me all I needed to know: the kitchen had been so deskilled mussels and cream came ‘boil in the bag.’

Pulling mussels from the shell is a pleasurable experience, although it doesn’t make me feel like Wiiliam Tell as in the Squeeze song!

Their soft texture combined with a briny taste with a touch of sweetness, and liquor of wine, juices, butter, herbs and garlic mopped up with slices of buttered baguette make them an easy home dish at a fraction of the price eaten out.

The only downside is the impossibility of getting a proper baguette as besides what our household calls a French Stick.

There’s an R in the month and the mussels urge was strong so I headed down to Sheffield’s Moor Market and bought two nets at Smith & Tissington’s stall for £7.50 the pair.

From Shetland, they were relatively clean and just needed a scrape and de-beard before rinsing and leaving in the fridge.

if you are ever in a quandary about how many nets to buy always get more than you need.

You have to bargain for a certain number of discards before and after you’ve cooked them – about ten a bag in this case.

And a word of warning. If it doesn’t close completely when you tap it, bin it. Never, ever give a mussel the benefit of the doubt. And the same goes if it’s a struggle to prise wide a half open one when cooked.

And if you cook too many there’s always something exciting you can do with the leftovers, like pickle them.

To cook you need the biggest pot you have although you can always cook in batches. I cooked mine in a stock pot then ladled the opened mussels into a pre-heated casserole dish while the mussels liquor reduced.

I sautéed finely chopped shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic with a bay leaf in butter and virgin olive oil before adding the mussels, letting them heat up then adding a glug of white wine (not too much, you don’t want to spend ages reducing the broth), lemon, seasoning and herbs, in my case parsley and coriander.

I say it myself, they were lovely. Particularly when I reflected how much our mountain of mussels would have cost in a restaurant.

And we hadn’t ate them all.I still had about 20 I couldn’t get in the pan so cooked lemon up in a little mussel broth, shelled them when cool, popped them in dish and covered them in ground white pepper, cider vinegar and a tablespoon of broth.

They were great in a salad the next day. The remaing shellfish liquor went into a pot to freeze for my next fish soup.