Mussels filled with garlicky parsley butter and baked until bubbly and golden make a great start to a meal. They may be served with cocktails as a palate teaser (amuse-bouche) or as a first course at the table. By taking care not to overcook the mussels, you will ensure that each mouthful not only bursts with flavor, but is tender as well. And this dish is fun to make. Pop the mussels into the oven as your guests are arriving and prepare for applause.
Moules gratinées en persillade / Mussels with parsley and garlic
Here in France, mussels come in two main varieties — moules de bouchot, which are small and are farmed on stakes planted in the sand, generally in the Atlantic, and moules d’Espagne, which are larger and are raised in the Mediterranean. The best for this dish would be the larger mussels, but when there were none available at the market last weekend I used the smaller ones, which worked out fine.
The French love mussels, and make them in many ways — à la marinière (cooked in white wine with shallots), in cream, with curry, in a saffron-flavored soup, as a spicy palate-teaser (no shells), in pasta, in paella and, as here, gratinées, meaning with a baked crust.
While a gratin crust is often made with cheese, that is not always the case. Here, the gratin is made with breadcrumbs. The mussels are first steamed open, then stuffed on the half-shell with softened butter combined with minced garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs. The mussels are then baked, but only briefly — five minutes max — to ensure tenderness.
Like so many French terms having to do with food, the word ‘gratin‘ has an interesting history. In centuries gone by, gratin meant the tasty bits that stick to the bottom of a roasting pan, for example after roasting a chicken, and that one needs to scratch at (gratter) in order to enjoy. Over time, French chefs brought these tasty bits to the top of the dish. By extension, ‘le gratin’ also means the elite of society — think ‘upper crust’.
There are already many gratin dishes on this site — made with cauliflower, leeks, Swiss chard, Belgian endive and country ham, eggplant, pasta, potatoes, pumpkin and mixed veggies. And let’s not forget ‘le gratinée‘ — the French term for French onion soup. These dishes are often most enjoyed in winter, when everyone needs comfort food.
Getting back to this week’s recipe, the main issue in making a batch of buttery garlicky mussels with a gratin crust is to be sure to make enough. I just asked my daughter, who gleefully downed 30 of them, how she’d describe the dish. Her reply? ‘More-ish’.
Happy cooking.
