Moules Frites

Moules Frites or Moules et Frites is a main dish of mussels and fries originating in Belgium. The title of the dish is French, moules meaning mussels and Frites fries, with the Dutch name for the dish meaning the same. Considered the national dish of Belgium. I love mussels in all manner of ways from just plain simple steamed to turned into a sauce to go with a steak. Moules Frites and cold beer have to be one of my favourite meals. It has to be skinny chips, not chunky chips and alongside a good garlic mayonnaise or aioli. This is my take on a classic.

Ingredients

500g mussels, cleaned and de-bearded

Finely diced shallot

1 tbsp olive oil

2 rashers streaky bacon

small bunch of wild garlic

handful flat leaf parsley

150ml beer, in this I used an IPA

Good dash of cream

Salt & Pepper to season

Instructions

In a pan with a lid heat the olive oil add the diced shallot and chopped up bacon.

Next we saute the onion until it is softened and the bacon coloured.

Chop the wild garlic and add, if you do not have wild garlic 2 cloves of finely diced garlic is fine, stir through until the wild garlic leaves have wilted or the normal garlic is softened. Take the cleaned mussels and add to the pan, pour in the beer and place on the lid.

The cooking of the mussels will only take a few minutes, check and when the mussels are opened they are cooked.

Remove the mussels with a slotted spoon and discard any that remain shut.

Add the cream to the cooking liquid and stir through, spoon the sauce over the mussels and garnish with the chopped parsley.

Serve with skinny chips aka Frites, garlic mayonaise or aioli and a cold beer.