..be like the Belgians!
Back in March, a friend and I relaxed in Brussels for the day and enjoyed some of the things that most Belgians enjoy. Had a few beers, some waffles and definitely had some mussels. They were UH-mazing and looked extremely easy to make. On that note, I decided to attempt making this awesome dish at home since I was really craving them and my son was willing to be my guinea pig :)
I went to the market first thing in the morning and picked up two containers of pre-packaged mussels. Price wise, it wasn't too bad. With the conversion rate and all, it came out to about twenty dollars for them and the pre-cut veggie baggies I was also able to get at the time.
These little bags of pre-cut veggies were a bit of a life saver seeing that they have onions in it in addition to green onions, celery and carrots. Makes it a little easier rather than make an even larger mess in my kitchen :)
While I was out and about a few weeks ago, I came across a kitchen store that sells "mussel pots" for pretty cheap ( 8 euros a piece), so I ended up getting a set since I know we'll use 'em for lots of things despite them being labeled for one thing. I got curious and went online to see how much they would cost on there and it kinda blew me away. Some sites had them listed for $60 a piece! Eeesh!
I remember my friend telling me about how she made mussels at her house and how it was really...really easy. When it comes to making the sauce for the mussels to sit in, you can kinda wing it since all that really matters is that you steam the little critters and their juices enhance the sauce. Fine and dandy. What do I love a lot? GARLIC! So, I minced up a bunch of garlic with some parsley:
I busted out my Le Creuset round oven and sautéed the veggies for about 10 minutes in butter to soften 'em up. When it comes to finding a recipe to make these, you can find all sorts of stuff on all recipes.com or anywhere else on the internet. They all basically consist of the same thing: butter, veggies, mussels and whatever else you feel like using to season.
Then I added white wine (Chardonnay) to the base and let it boil for 20 minutes to get all of the alcohol out of it.
Once the wine is boiled out and the sauce is at a simmer, I added some cooking cream to thicken it up. After a few minutes, I tossed all the mussels in and let them cook for another 6-8 minutes.
Make sure you stir them around to ensure that all of them have opened up. Whichever ones didn't open up need to be tossed out!
Of course, I made my own fries to go with the mussels...
Voila! You can serve mayonnaise with your fritz ( at least that's what they do over here), but my son opted to have Samurai sauce since he likes things a little spicy.
It came out AWESOME! We were both happy campers and totally inhaled this dish! My son was surprised as to how filling it actually was since he commented how mussels don't really have a lot of meat in them. Gotta love the fries! lol
All in all, I got a enthusiastic "two thumbs up" and will be making this again sometime :) Not bad for trying something that the locals make!
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