Moules à la Portugaise

Yup, I've been slacking off again, I know. Work is busy, I've been feeling run down, blah blah. This hasn't stopped me from cooking, but I have been slacking in the posting department, considering that whenever I've been in front of a computer, I've been doing work instead of writing about food. Anyway, I'm playing catch-up and will post about the dish I made last week... next week. But first, let's talk about moules à la Portugaise.

Now, there are a lot of DC Metro area food blogs that boast about the excellent fresh ingredients that can be found in this fair city. This is great, for some, but not so much for me. Why is that? Simple--I don't own a car. So the good ethnic shops in particular (and any non-metro accessible shops generally) are out of reach without some serious advanced planning.

This weekend we decided to do some of said advanced planning in order to make some purchases that needed to be transported by car. Husband J arranged to rent a zipcar for the morning, and asked me whether I'd like to visit BlackSalt, a fish market and restaurant in the Palisades (near Georgetown, another desolate and metro-less region, in my opinion). BlackSalt is known as THE place to get good, fresh seafood in the District, so of course I jumped at the chance to actually visit. In preparation, I decided to give them a call to see if they had any of the seafood I needed for some of my Les Halles Cookbook recipes. But when I called, asking what they might have in stock over the next couple of days, I got a terse "call tomorrow; I buy my fish daily" from the head fishmonger, in a tone that told me this conversation was OVER.

Uh RUDE MUCH? No asking what I had in mind, or discussion of what might be available at this time generally? So much for asking whether pike or monkfish might be available (or if they have a season at all). I was a bit miffed, but those of you who know me know that I'm not quick to write off stores or people after one bad experience, everyone has off days. So I decided to go the next day to see what was available and get a feel for the place.

So, like I said, BlackSalt is a restaurant and fish market. The two shops are not separated, but combined, with the market in the front of the shop, and tables ranging from the front to the back, which looks like a more traditional restaurant. We went early on Saturday morning, so the restaurant was empty, but there were already a lot of customers looking over the fish counter. The counter held a lot of beautiful, gleaming seafood, including cuts, heads, whole fish, and other tasty creatures. Unfortunately, no monkfish tails, pike, crawfish, or any of the other fish called for in my recipes. I was considering whether to go for some tender-looking monkfish cheeks when I spotted some Prince Edward Island mussels for $3.99 a pound. Another mussel dish would be perfect for the warm, rainy weather, so I decided to go for those. I bought three pounds, and a small jar of salmon roe as a treat.

On the way back, I asked Husband J which mussel dish he would like among the four left in the book, and he decided on moules à la Portugaise, which features DELICIOUS CHORIZO in the sauce. I told him that his duty, then, would be to find some chorizo. He accomplished this easily by checking out a new charcouterie market that recently opened in our neighborhood, and happens to stock house-made chorizo. Brilliant! The chorizo he found was dry, but still the red, fresh chorizo that Tony prefers in his recipe, rather than the drier, white-mold covered dark chorizo favored by more traditional Portuguese cooks. I'd like to try the darker chorizo, but I'm not going to turn my nose up at local house-made chorizo, for sure.



Red, greasy and delicious.

Though the recipe calls for 6 lbs of mussels, and I bought 3 lbs (to feed 2 instead of 4), I decided to make the full recipe for the sauce, since that is after all the most delicious part.

First, I heated some olive oil in a large pot, and sauteed half an onion, six cloves of garlic, and two ounces of the chorizo. (The recipe calls for 1 oz, but I decided to double it, since Husband J bought an 8 oz link. That's a lot of leftover chorizo, and I am looking forward to some chorizo scrambled eggs in my immediate future.)



While those were cooking, I scrubbed and inspected the mussels, one at a time. Unlike the Whole Foods mussels, most of the BlackSalt mussels were tightly closed, or closed when I tapped the shell, signifying that they were alive. I tossed less than 1/5 of the mussels, making these a much better value.

Once the chorizo released its red, spicy scented grease, I added some white wine, salt, and pepper. Then I dumped in the mussels to steam under lid until they opened up.



A quick, blurry photo of mussels starting to steam.

After the mussels opened, I threw in a handful of chopped parsley and cilantro, shook the whole pot, and served it up with slices of french bread (again house-made from the charcuterie shop).



Well, one thing is for sure, I will never buy mussels from Whole Foods again. These mussels put the old ones to shame. These were very tender and meaty with a great subtle seafood flavor. The sauce was brilliant, filled with chorizo grease, and was very delicious when mopped up with the bread. Of course the slices of chorizo were probably the best part.

All in all, this was a great and easy meal for a rainy weekend afternoon.

Lessons Learned: Most importantly, that a good cook needs to know how to find great ingredients, whether it's from a shop that's usually out of reach or a new neighborhood joint with some delicious surprises. But next time I'll probably be more aggressive about finding out whether the fish I need is in the shop before going to the trouble of renting a car and traveling out to the shops.

Next Week: I'll write about the lamb stew I made last week.

Moules Normandes; Aoli

Happy Valentines Day!

Okay, okay. I think you know enough of my character to know that I am NOT a huge fan of Valentine's day. It's nice and all, but who needs chalky, unpleasant heart-shaped candies, and greeting cards with canned sentiment? Not me, for sure. Valentine's Day for me usually carried the same dread as Friday the 13th--even when I wasn't single, something horrible would invariably happen and the day would go completely wrong.

Once I met Husband J, though, Valentines Day settled down, and bad things stopped happening. I learned to sit back and enjoy the day, rather than dread it, and we began a tradition of staying in, and cooking fun meals to celebrate the day. (Unusual presents, too--Husband J got me a much-coveted bottle of L'heure Bleue, while I got him a copy of Brütal Legend, a heavy metal themed video game starring Jack Black. That's love!)

For tonight's dinner, I really wanted to go all-out to make up for my slacking lately, what with the storm, the trip, and the simplistic dishes I've been making for the past few weeks. I ambitiously set my sights on Duck a l'orange, only to run into a snag--there is no duck to be had in the city. Even my faithful Eastern Market butcher doesn't stock poultry! So, stranded at the Whole Foods, Husband J requested mussels, which were in stock. I knew that there were five--count 'em, five--recipes for mussels in the Les Halles Cookbook that needed to be gotten through, so I agreed. We picked up a bag of mussels, and headed home to cook.

Now, mussels plus Tony Bourdain does not equal sweet harmony. In fact, he admits in the cookbook that he has "famously frightened away hundreds of people from eating mussels." For those who haven't read Kitchen Confidential, there's a segment in the book in which Tony explains some of the less savory kitchen practices in restaurants, and how that resolves into what he will or will not eat when dining out. While he grants that he is not bothered by recycling bread baskets from one table to another (me neither, I'll eat the bread too), he does provide some basic tips about what not to eat at restaurants. These tips include "never order fish on Monday," "no hollandaise," "don't eat in a restaurant with filthy bathrooms," "no swordfish," (three foot long parasitic worms, anyone?) "no well-done steak" and, most damning, never eat mussels in a restaurant, unless you see how they handle and store them. Mussels need to drain while being held for cooking, and be picked through carefully to ensure each mussel is healthy and alive before throwing them into the pot. But, as Tony explains, this type of handling is rare because mussels are so easy to cook and sell at a premium. Toss them in a pot, and $24.95 later, you're making a sweet profit with time left over to chiffonade your mise. The effects of eating bad mussels are dire, he explains, using such phrases as "shitting like a mink." I prefer not to spend my Valentine's evening in such a position, so I resolved to handle the mussels as carefully as possible, first storing them in a colander above a bowl in the fridge, so that they could drain properly.

The best thing to eat with mussels is, of course, fries with mayonnaise in the true Belgian style. I wasn't about to try deep frying myself some fries just yet (no Valentine grease fires please) so I whussed out with some frozen fries. But I determined to make some garlic aoli (in the "miscellaneous meez" section of the book) for dipping. The recipe calls for four garlic cloves, half a cup of olive oil, and salt, pulsed in the food processor. Once pulsed, add an egg yolk, and leave the processor running while another half cup of olive oil is trickled in.



Easy, right? Well it ended up in a runny, grainy, separated mess.



Blech. Please pay no attention to my "claw hand" there, I was trying to steady the oily mess and take a picture at the same time.

I'm no stranger to mayonnaise mishaps, having tried making it myself before, but I was pretty disappointed in the nasty mess I'd made with the aoli. Hopefully the mussels wouldn't have the same result...

I started the mussels by frying bacon, the way every dish should start, in my opinion.



Next, I melted a ton of butter in a pot, and fried chopped shallots until soft.



Then, I added sliced mushrooms and cubed apple, and sauteed them until they released their liquid and softened.



The recipe called for calvados (French apple brandy), but instead I used what we had on hand--apple whiskey from Leopold Bros. in Colorado. Then I added cream, salt and pepper, and brought the whole thing to a boil.



As the sauce simmered, it was time to go through the mussels. I hauled the colander out of the fridge, and went through the pile, mussel by mussel, checking which were tightly closed (good) and which were gaping open (bad). The open ones were thrown out, while the closed ones got tossed into the pot and cooked in the sauce until they opened up. I probably threw out about half of the mussels, which sounds wasteful until you think of the phrase "shitting like a mink" and what it signifies.



At this point I had a problem--the recipe didn't say what to do with the bacon that I had fried at the beginning of the evening. So, I dumped the bacon bits over the cooking mussels. Once all the mussels opened, I dumped them into a bowl and served them with the fries, and a loaf of homemade bread.



The verdict? Oh my god. The mussels were delicious and sweet, and I was happy that I had picked through them so carefully. But the best part was the sauce, which was creamy and smoky from the bacon and whiskey. I was actually happy when all the mussels were gone, so I could soak bits of bread in the sauce and lap it all up. Husband J and I actually ignored our fries to focus on the mussels and sauce, which was really something. Husabnd J said that this was definitely one of his favorite meals, in that it was more of a casual, "pub food" meal than most of the ones I have cooked so far. All in all, it was a great Valentines Day meal, and more than made up for my aoli fail.

Lessons Learned: Always handle and store your mussels carefully, and toss the open ones before you cook. Aoli is freaking hard. Pay attention to what's to be done with the bacon. Homemade mussels and homemade bread are much better than frozen french fries.

Next Week: Ehhh I'm not sure... I'll think on it.

Frisée aux Lardons; Coquilles Saint-Jaques with Champagne

In my excitement for having braved the pig's heart a few weeks back, I sent my blog around to a couple of friends. Friend S, an out of town student who I hadn't seen in an age, came in to town this weekend, so of course I had to invite him over for another culinary experiment. The catch? He's been diagnosed as celiac, so no gluten allowed. After perusing the recipes in my book, I decided on bacon salad, or frisée aux lardons, and coquilles saint-jacques with champagne, that is, sea scallops in champagne sauce. No gluten there, except the optional croutons spread with roquefort that go with the salad. Also, the champagne sauce attracted me as having only half a cup of actual champagne in the sauce... meaning the rest is for drinking (yesssss).

I'd been eyeing the big, fat, meaty sea scallops that they have at whole foods, and pounced on them this morning. All I have to say is MAN those things are pricey. But I looove scallops, so they are oh so worth it for the indulgence. I also went to my favorite pork vendor, Cedarbrook Farms, for their delicious bacon for the salad. One thing to note about this bacon is that I think it's probably true to the way slab bacon probably should taste in a frisée aux lardons--not too salty, not processed, just very porky, meaty and delicious. Husband J claims it tastes like jerky, and I take his word for it, never having had jerky ever. (Am I missing out on this?)

First, I clarified some butter for frying the scallops. Clarified butter is tougher than it looks, in my opinion. You have to first melt the butter to the point where it separates, then scoop out the foam on top, and then pour off the liquid leaving the rest of the solids at the bottom of the pot. I was only moderately successful.

C is for clarified butter... it's clear enough for me.

Anyway, the time for dinner drew near on Sunday evening. I started out with the salad. Now, the recipe in the book calls for chicken liver vinaigrette, but alas, my livers were not in tip top shape, and I was a little suspicious about how fatty a liver vinaigrette would be in a (let's repeat) bacon salad. So I made the executive call that a plain vinaigrette would do, and set about making the same one that I made for the salade niçoise (red wine vinegar, olive oil, stirred with a clove of garlic).

Vinaigrette and shallots standing by for the salad.

Next comes bacon. The recipe called for blanching the bacon by boiling it, and then frying it afterwards. This is a little better than the rillettes, which were all boiled, but I still cast a suspicious eye upon the boiling of bacon.

It's just so wrong.

Frying makes it so right.

While the bacon fried, I started on the sauce for the scallops. This involves shallot sauteed in butter, then fish sauce and cream, and reduced by about half to create a thick, fishy, creamy sauce. Full disclosure--I didn't have the time or the ability to make fish stock, but found some frozen stock in the Whole Foods seafood section. Am I going to hell? Probably. But it was pretty tasty and looked house-made if not home-made, so we're just going to go with it for now. The sauce went on to warm while I waited for the guests to arrive. The featured guests tonight were the aforementioned Friend S, and an in-town friend, Friend T, who brought her lovely husband... uh, J.

Anyway, while waiting, I patted the scallops dry and set them out. Aren't they gorgeous?

Husband J calls them "sea pillows."

When the guests arrived, we shared the remaining champagne and some pate, crackers and chips. Then it was time to cook the scallops. I melted the clarified butter, and set the fluffy monsters out in a ring. Three minutes on each side led to a lovely golden color on their tops and bottoms.


Once the scallops were finished and keeping warm on a plate, it was time to finish up the sauce. I deglazed the scallop pan with the champagne, reduced it, then added the cream sauce and a knob of butter. The result was a fragrant fat-infused cream sauce... seriously you could gain weight just by smelling the stuff. It came off the eat, and some lemon juice and chives finished off the whole deal. I served the salad on top of toasts smeared with roquefort, and the scallops in a bowl covered in delicious sauce.

Salad...

And tasty, tasty scallops.

Well it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that this was another huge success. I mean, you can't dole out fatty scallops smothered in cream and butter and have unhappy guests, especially when you gave them the leftover champagne first. Everyone scraped their plates clean--Friend T even asked for (and received) a spoon to lap up the rest of the sauce in her bowl. (The only reason she didn't slurp it up was because we didn't have any straws!) I encourage plate licking, but I suppose dignity got in the way tonight. Maybe next time.

Husband J (my Husband J, not T's) decided that this was hands down the best meal I'd made from the Les Halles Cookbook so far, and he's had them all, so that's quite impressive. I was really pleased with how well the salad and the scallops went together, too, and glad that I'd decided to forego the liver vinaigrette which would have been too much.

Oh, and dessert ended up being a mix of sorbets and gelatos, since I didn't have the time or inclination to make dessert. But the lighter, cold dessert again was a good compliment to the meal, so it all worked out in the end.

Lessons learned: You really just can't go wrong with scallops. Bacon salad tastes just as good with regular vinaigrette, especially when the rest of the meal is a saturated fatfest. Whole Foods fish stock tastes pretty freaking good.

Next week: Happy day... I saw whole snappers at the whole foods. We're having whole roasted fish Basquaise!