We have always tried to maintain an ideal of the Friday Night Supper, which is a meal at home that should be as simple and laid back as going out for a fish fry.
Last night, the spur of the moment decision was mussels with french fries. With the meal lacking the sophistication of a Brasserie V or a Sardine, it would be a stretch to call them Moules Frites. But despite a couple of false starts, the Friday Night Supper turned out to be delicious.
Outside of the reliable above mentioned local options for mussels, our three reference points for amazing mussels were three restaurants from travels: L’Express in Montreal, Belgo in London (the restaurant has as great an attitude as their website), and Bistrot Maison in the Willamette Valley wine town of McMinnville, Oregon.
All those mussels were plump, steamed in a simple wine/shallot broth that could almost be drunk from the bowl. And the frites were thin, crispy, and most likely fried in something forbidden like beef tallow or duck fat.
Our Friday night supper didn’t approach those heights, although the Prince Edward Island mussels we bought from Hughes Seafood at Brennan’s on University were the plumpest store bought mussels we have ever had.
To prepare, we started by mincing shallots and flat leaf parsley. We then brought a couple of cups of dry white wine to simmer with the shallots, so the shallots could release their flavor. Just before dumping in 3 pounds of mussels, we added the parsley.
With a vigorous shake of the Le Creuset pot half way through, the mussels were done in five minutes.
We served them with a crusty baguette from Manna Cafe on Sherman Avenue, that was great for soaking up the sauce. Manna bakes a baguette so tasty, it can be a meal in its own right.
Unfortunately, the fries, or frites, we were baking took longer crisp up than we expected, so they made a mid-meal appearance. Good when they got there, but no competition for the frites from Brasserie V.
We also attempted to hand make Aioli (mayonnaise with garlic) from scratch. Our first attempt at Aioli failed, (were the eggs not room temperature?) so we made a quick and very tasty fix by mincing garlic and a touch of salt into store bought mayonnaise.
To wash all this down we had a great local beer with an intimidating name and label: Ambergeddon from Ale Asylum Brewery in Madison. It had a heady, over the top hop taste that sparred well with all the garlic and shallots in the meal.
Despite a couple of bumps in the road, this dinner worked well in delivering the simple, yet delicious ideal of a Friday night supper. A successful homemade Aioli from scratch will be for another blog post.
EatWisconsin says
I love mussles & frites. One of the best recipes I have used surprisingly came from Rachel Ray. She uses Mexican beer, I prefer something with a bit more flavor like a Spotted Cow or a Belgain style ale.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/mussels-in-mexican-beer-recipe/index.html
Foodie says
A beer based recipe would be an excellent variation. A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times ran a recipe recommending a Belgian style ale as well. Wondering if an IPA would work too? http://tinyurl.com/cjt7yf