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Mussels, Ragout Of
Cleanse the shells, and boil the mussels as before directed (see MUSSELS, KETCHUP OF). When bearded put them into a basin, and the juice which flows from them into another. Dissolve a lump of butter in a stewpan, mince some parsley, button mushrooms, and shallots, if liked. Stew them in the butter with a seasoning of mace, pepper, and salt, if required (though this last must be used sparingly); moisten with the liquor, and some gravy; if it be not enough thicken with flour, and put in the mussels to get hot through, but do not let them boil. Time, a quarter of an hour.
A straightforward mussel stew that depends on two things the original states almost in passing: the mussel liquor is the seasoning, and the mussels must not be cooked twice.
- The hinge — do not let them boilThe mussels are already cooked when they open in the first pot. Returning them to the sauce is only to warm them through, a minute at most off a gentle heat. Boiled a second time they shrink to rubber.
- "Boil as before directed"The cross-referenced method is not reproduced on this page; the cleaned mussels are cooked in a covered pot until the shells gape. Discard any that stay shut, and any that are cracked or that will not close when tapped before cooking.
- BeardingThe beard is the tough byssal thread at the hinge side. Pull it out after cooking, when it comes away easily; on farmed rope-grown mussels there is often almost nothing to remove.
- Save and strain the liquorWild mussels release sand along with their juice. Let the liquor settle, then pour it off through a cloth-lined sieve, leaving the last spoonful of grit behind. This is why the recipe insists on catching it in a separate basin.
- Salt "sparingly"Sound advice, and worth repeating: the strained liquor is close to seawater. Season the finished sauce only after it has reduced and you have tasted it.
- "Gravy"In Victorian usage this means unthickened meat stock, usually veal or beef, not a made-up brown sauce. Light chicken or veal stock works; fish stock is a defensible modern substitution and keeps the flavour cleaner.
- MaceThe lacy outer covering of the nutmeg, sold as blades or ground. A single blade or a small pinch of ground mace is plenty for a pound or two of mussels; more turns the dish medicinal.
- Butter and flour"A lump of butter" is roughly 1-2 oz. If you thicken, cook the flour in the butter with the aromatics for a minute before adding liquid, or the sauce tastes raw and pasty.
- Time and yieldThe quarter of an hour appears to cover the sauce rather than the mussels, which are cooked beforehand. About 2 lb of mussels in the shell serves two as a main course, or four with bread.
Mussels were among the cheapest shellfish in nineteenth-century Britain, gathered from tidal beds and hawked in coastal towns and inland markets alike, which is why a compendium like Cassell's gives them more than one entry — a ketchup as well as this ragout. The word ragout, from the French rago tter, to revive the appetite, had by this date lost most of its French precision in English cookbooks and meant little more than something stewed in a seasoned sauce. The combination here — butter, parsley, shallot, mushroom, a blade of mace, moistened with the shellfish's own liquor and a little meat stock — is thoroughly Anglicised, with stock standing in where a French kitchen would have reached for white wine. The insistence that salt "must be used sparingly" is the mark of a writer who has actually tasted mussel liquor.