By Wheeler Cowperthwaite

A perfect dish for a fancy Lent dinner, these mussels are boiled in white wine and served with white wine and bread.

There are several French recipes that are great for impressing your guests, spouse or parents.

There’s coq au vin, chicken braised with wine; beef bourguignon, a beef stew named for the wine used to make it, (dry pinot noir if it’s not from Burgundy, France); and Rôti de porc, roasted pork (marinated for days in wine or vermouth).

The theme with these French dishes from Julia Child, besides wine, is time. They all take a lot of time and effort.

Not all fancy French wine-based dishes take so long, though. As we approach Lent, I’m making moules marinière, literally “sailor mussels,” a simple, quick and delicious dish that won’t take the entire day to make.

The method is incredibly simple: the mussels are steamed in a big, open pot with wine and some herbs and spices meant to flavor them. Once the mussels have steamed open ¬¬— about five minutes ¬¬— they are decanted onto deep plates and a quick stock of wine and their cooked juices is poured over them.

Mussels are oftentimes the most affordable shellfish and this is an easy, jazzy, flavorful way to cook them, and to add a new recipe to your Lent meal planning.

The sauce made for this dish is worth sipping (or soaking up with bread) after the mussels have been consumed.

In her seminal book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” Child advises that the mussels should be served with French bread, butter and a cold, dry white wine, like Muscadet (made with Melon de Bourgogne grapes) or Pouilly (made with Chardonnay grapes, but from the Mâconnais region of France).

Mussels require some preparation that make this recipe a little more labor-intensive than I may have initially let on.

Before throwing them in the boiling vat of wine, you should discard any mussels that aren’t closed, or alternately, tap them on the counter. If they don’t close, discard them. Mussels are alive when you buy them.

Scrub each mussel with a rough brush under running water and then scrape off the hair or beard with a knife. An alternative method is to hold the mussel in one hand using a dry towel, and then pull the beard out with your other hand.

Child suggests putting the mussels in a pot of water for an hour or two before cooking to “disgorge their sand,” although other cookbook authors do not suggest the same. If you soak, put them in a colander and rinse in cold water.

Child also advises a host should provide an extra dish for the discarded shells as well as a finger bowl, which is literally a bowl of water for people to clean their fingers mid-meal.

Sailor mussels

Ingredients

2 cups dry white wine or 1 cup dry white vermouth

8-10 quart pot with cover

½ cup minced shallots or green onions

½ bay leaf

¼ teaspoon thyme

1 dash of pepper

6 tablespoons butter (3/4 stick)

6 quarts of scrubbed and soaked mussels

Directions

Bring the wine or vermouth to a boil in a pot with the shallots, bay leaf, thyme, pepper and butter. Let boil for 2-3 minutes.

Add the mussels to the kettle, cover and continue to boil over high heat. Keeping the lid on, toss the mussels in the kettle with an up-and-down, jerky motion. Boil for about 5 minutes. The mussels should pop open when done.

Discard any mussels that did not open.

Decant the mussels to soup plates. Ladle the cooking liquid over the mussels and serve.

Wheeler Cowperthwaite is a former cops/courts reporter for the Rio Grande SUN.