Fennel and Chilli Moules Frites
My favourite, most effortless moules. For Valentine's Day, or any damn day. Plus deets on my first live 'Kitchen Hang'
You’re reading this monthly free version of A Lot On Her Plate. This is my Valentine’s gift to you, because I LOVE that you’re here. I hope you enjoy my writing, and this delicious recipe, and if you do, please consider upgrading your subscription to hear more from me more regularly, and for full access to all the fun and delicious things we get up to in this little corner of the internet.
If, like me, you just can’t relish the idea of going out for Valentine’s Day and putting that kind of PDA pressure on your sleep-deprived marriage in a room full of other self-conscious couples clutching shamefully marked-up menus, then you’ll be cooking at home tomorrow. I get (and pretty much live by) the idea that cooking is a way to show love, but if you’re cooking for a partner, or friend or lover or whoever on Valentine’s Day, you also want to be able to kick back and enjoy, without compromising on making it a special meal for the one you love. The answer, my friends, is moules frites. (Though I see you, shellfish allergy folks, and I give you Sexy Steak with Secret Sauce, or an abundance of loved up veggie dishes in the archive — look no further than Cosy Truffled Mushroom Gnocchi!).
But back to magical molluscs. Now is the time to be eating them. The seas are cold, and the molluscs are happier for it. Brinier. Sweeter. More deeply delish. A dear friend who is a very accomplished cook admitted to me the other day that she is daunted by cooking mussels, and it struck me that perhaps there’s quite a lot of people out there who might feel like that, so as usual I’m here to hold your hand if that is something that worries you. I’d really like to demystify cooking moules for anyone out there who hasn’t felt confident to do this, because I promise they could not be easier, or more satisfying to cook. The hardest part is probably sourcing good mussels — and really your best and only option (unless you live in France where you can literally buy live mussels in the supermarket) is to head to your favourite fishmonger.
Once you’ve got your hands on some lovely mussels, they are actually the ultimate fast food because, after a bit of — albeit slightly annoyingly fiddly prep — they take very little cooking and god forbid we hammer them and end up with sad little hard, shrivelled mussels where sweet, tender, juicy ones should have been. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve had mussels overcooked for me in restaurants. But once prepped, it takes less than ten minutes of hands-on cooking time to make this, my version of the classic French Moules Marinière.
Endlessly adaptable
I use fennel, chilli, celery and fresh bay in my soffritto because I love the aromatic flavour those ingredients impart — I really dig that hit of sweet anise from the fennel — but the beauty of this dish (and the reason it’s so widely cooked around the world) is that it is endlessly adaptable in terms of flavourings. It’s all about what you sweat down in the fat first, in terms of the aromatics that you’re imparting to the rest of the dish — this is what’s going to infuse the mussels as they cook and give their flavour up to the wonderful briney broth. If you’d rather use ginger, lemongrass and coconut milk for an Asian take on this, go right ahead, that’s bloody delicious. You could also add kaffir lime leaves or fresh or dried curry leaves too. If you only have garlic, celery and white onions, keep it classic. If you’ve got some nduja or good cured sausage, salami or pancetta knocking about in the fridge, those could add a gorgeous porky depth and umami. For me personally when I’m cooking mussels (and most seafood, actually), I love a kick of chilli, so if I have some fresh I’ll put that in, otherwise I’ll turn to dried chilli flakes and plenty of white pepper.
The Recipe
I’m not going to insult your intelligence by giving you a recipe for how to cook oven chips, but do please get them to the point that they’re very nearly ready when you start to cook your mussels, as it’s not going to take more than ten minutes to bring this all together, and in my experience, frozen oven chips always take longer than it says on the packet to get them as crispy as I like. Of course, if you want to fry chips from scratch, go for it – I just thought that in the spirit of ease (and romance) it’d be better to use the oven ready ones. Ew, typing ‘oven ready’ just reminded me of a really dark time for British politics.
Also, major life hack alert (!) here for anyone who lives near a very good chip shop as I happen to. Buy more chips than you need next time you get a takeaway, wait for them to cool and then freeze them. Heat them back up in a hot oven from frozen, and you’ve got yourself the very best frozen oven chips money can buy.
I just LOVE my mussels served with a big, garlicky dollop of aoili. It melts into the sauce and makes it wonderfully creamy, and it’s just lovely scooping those juicy mussels into your mouth with a hit of thick garlic mayo. Plus it’s great for the chips. But of course, it’s totally optional. If you have a very good shop bought mayo, you could just add in a grated clove of garlic, or if there’s time, you could make my super easy jam jar aioli, which can be made ahead and stashed in the fridge for ease. It’s so perfect with this.
And don’t forget a big bowl (or roasting tray, for some reason we used a roasting tray?) for the shells.
Here’s the recipe for you, as always, in handy PDF format. Is anyone missing the recipe being printed in the copy of the newsletter? Holler at me in comments if so!? I really hope you enjoy this, for Valentine’s Day, or any damn day. It’s a winner. As always, let me know how you get on, I love to hear from you.
My first ‘Live Kitchen Hang’ with Margie Nomura
Once upon a time, back in my London life, I used to do a fair bit of live TV. I also embraced Instagram’s lives for a while, especially during covid when they felt like something of a lifeline to connecting with colleagues and pals in food. But I actually haven’t done anything like this in quite some time (last time I tried, I had to cancel because, ironically, I caught covid) and I so I was rather nervous this morning to ‘go live’ in the Substack app. But I also thought it would be really nice to show my face and connect with some lovely subscribers and another foodie newsletter writer, so I swallowed my considerable nerves and went with it.
Thankfully, I chose my pal Margie Nomura (who writes the amazing Dinner Tonight newsletter) to chat to. Margie and I go waaay back and had loads to catch up on and talk about, so it was really fun. We covered everything from work stuff: how we both got started in food and why we chose to move to Substack, to our favourite bits of kitchen kit and how we approach feeding our children — Margie is also a mum of two.
Here’s a little teaser of our chat below, and I’m hopefully going to be sharing the full conversation with paid subscribers in time for this weekend. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and whether this sort of thing is something you’d like to see more of, because I really loved talking to Margie, and it’s something I’d potentially like to do more of with other interesting people. So I’m thinking ‘Kitchen Hangs’ could maybe become a fun thing for us all? I cringe watching myself back, but I think that’s the case for most people? Though I can’t really shake my inner critic’s notion that I’m like a sort of foodie mix of Alan Partridge and Bridget Jones…
I’ll leave you with that image to conclude today’s newsletter. If you liked this little dispatch, then please give me a little ❤️, and if you like the sound of this recipe, or know someone who you think would enjoy it, I’d be so grateful if you might share this piece and spread the moules frites joy. As always, thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you really soon. x