Friday 12 April - Moules

After watching an episode of The Hairy Bikers this week where they cooked shellfish, it made us yearn for mussels. So Bob was dispatched by bicycle and ferry at 730 am to the fish sheds in Old Portsmouth.

I decided to go for the simple option of cooking them in wine and shallots, but adding a spoonful of creme fraiche at the end to enrich the sauce.

Firstly we made some of my ciabatta style bread to serve with them, but also to try out my new scotch scraper which arrived in the post.

I made a standard bread dough in the Kenwood Chef with a dough hook, but added a fair glug of olive oil to it, and much more water than you think you could possibly need - this resulted in a very wet dough, which was then left to rise for an hour or so, until double in size.

 

 Once the dough was risen it was poured onto a sheet covered with some semolina sprinkled over it - I didn't kneed the dough again at all, simply shaped it using my new toy, into two loaves.

 

These were then left to rise again, before baking in a hot oven for about 25 minutes.

 

Now for the mussels - we bought 2 kilos to allow for damaged ones - although there were very few of these.

The mussels were cleaned, and rinsed thoroughly.

 

I tend to use Sophie Grigsons method for cooking them, this involves the shallots, garlic and some parsley being cooked with wine and water for about 15 mins, and then add the mussels.

The mussels were cooked for about 5 minutes, then transferred to a serving dish (this was the first time we had used this! - Thanks Andy)

 

Finally, a spoonful of creme fraiche added to the cooking juices with a handful of chopped parsley was poured over the mussels and they were served along with the crusty bread.