Ronnie Herman's Mussels in White Wine Sauce à la Crème.

musselsseafoodwhite-winecreamsaucefrites

SERVES

TOTAL

90m

ACTIVE

45m

LVL

MEDIUM

./images/mussels-white-wine-creme-sauce/POSTER.SVG DUTCH

// SUMMARY

Mussels cooked hard and fast over aromatics, then drowned in a white wine sauce built on cream and a full litre of mussel cooking liquid, enriched with butter and finished with lemon. The sauce is the celebration piece — it makes eight to ten servings, so it is worth the effort and freezes well. Served the proper way: fresh French fries and mustard mayonnaise alongside.

// INGREDIENTS

SRV :: 2

100	g	Spanish onion, finely chopped
100	g	celery, finely chopped
100	g	leaf celery (Chinese celery), finely chopped
2	tbsp	olive oil
2	tbsp	salted butter, cut into cubes
3		sprigs thyme, leaves only
1		garlic clove, minced
150	ml	white wine
250	ml	heavy cream
1		litre mussel cooking liquid (see Notes)
150	g	unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1	tbsp	cornstarch
— Freshly ground black pepper
— Juice of ¼ lemon
1	kg	mussels
1		onion, chopped
2		celery stalks, finely chopped
4		stems leaf celery (Chinese celery), finely chopped
3		garlic cloves, minced
6		sprigs thyme, leaves only
2	tbsp	freshly ground black pepper
250	ml	white wine
80	g	salted butter
1		nice mix of chervil, dill, bronze fennel, flat-leaf parsley and/or basil
100	g	mustard mayonnaise
1		portion fresh French fries per person

// METHOD

01
Sweat the onion, celery and leaf celery in a hot pan with a splash of olive oil and the salted butter.
02
Add the thyme and garlic, then **deglaze with the white wine and let it evaporate completely**. Do not rush this — any remaining raw wine will sit sharp against the cream.
03
Add the heavy cream and the mussel cooking liquid. Simmer **very gently over low heat for 20–30 minutes**.
04
Pour the sauce through a fine sieve into a bowl, return it to the pan and **reduce for another 10 minutes**.
05
Stir in the unsalted butter, then the cornstarch, and keep stirring until the sauce is thick and beautifully smooth. Slake the cornstarch in a tablespoon of cold water first — added dry to a hot pan it will lump.
06
Finish with plenty of black pepper and the lemon juice. **Keep hot.** For a frothier sauce, give it a quick blitz with an immersion blender at the end.
07
Fill the sink or a large pot with plenty of cold water and rinse the mussels. Drain, refill with fresh water and rinse **two more times**.
08
Discard any shells that are cracked or broken.
09
Also discard any that float to the surface — they may be spoiled.
10
Put the vegetables, garlic and thyme into a mussel pot. Lay the mussels on top of the vegetables.
11
Season the mussels with a **generous** amount of black pepper and pour over the white wine.
12
Cover the pan and cook the mussels quickly over **high heat**.
13
After a few minutes, check whether the liquid has foamed up over the mussels, then give the pan a good shake so that the vegetables and mussels from the bottom are now on top.
14
Put the lid back on and bring back to a boil — the liquid will foam up and cover the mussels again.
15
Add the salted butter and **immediately turn the heat to low**. Let the butter melt in between the mussels and combine with the liquid at the bottom of the pot.
16
Serve the mussels straight from the pot, or spoon them into a warm serving dish.
17
**Drain off the cooking liquid** and save it — freeze it for the next batch of sauce.
18
Pour the white wine sauce over the mussels and finish with the herbs.
19
Put the mustard mayonnaise in a small bowl and serve with fresh French fries.

// NOTES

— The mussel cooking liquid is the catch. The sauce needs a full litre of it. It is the strained liquor from a previous batch — see the "Mussel Cooking Liquid" recipe in Basics, which yields about 750 ml from 1.5 kg of mussels, so a litre means roughly two batches. Practically: cook mussels once, freeze the liquor, make the sauce the next time. At a pinch, top up what you have with a good fish stock, but the sauce loses depth.
— Don't scale the sauce with the mussels. As written the sauce is 8–10 servings and the mussels are 2 generous mains. Make the full sauce, use what you need, freeze the rest.
— Leaf celery (Chinese celery, _selderij_) is thinner and far more aromatic than a celery stalk. Celery leaves from a regular head are the closest substitute; don't just use more stalk.
— Season last. Between the mussel liquid, the salted butter and the mustard mayonnaise there is a lot of salt in play — taste before adding any.
— Freezing: the sauce freezes well. Reheat gently and re-emulsify with the immersion blender rather than boiling it.
— Two tablespoons of black pepper is not a typo — it is what carries the dish against the cream. Grind it coarse.

// VARIATIONS

→ Lighter: skip the 150 g of unsalted butter and the cornstarch, and simply reduce the sauce further. Thinner, cleaner, still very good.
→ Without the sauce: the mussels in step 3 stand entirely on their own as classic moules — serve them in their cooking liquid with the herbs, fries and mustard mayonnaise.
→ Mustard mayonnaise: whisk 1–2 tsp of coarse Dijon or grainy mustard into 100 g of good mayonnaise with a squeeze of lemon.

// SOURCE

Sergio Herman — Mussels, p. 63 (Ronnie Herman's mussels)

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