No. 1046

Mussels a la Mariniere

Moules a la Mariniere

The mussels should be prepared as for No. 1045. Cook in butter one shallot with the same quantity of very finely chopped onions; moisten with white wine, add the mussels and a little veloute sauce (No. 415), and mussel broth; keep this warm and just when ready to serve, stir in a piece of fresh butter and chopped parsley.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a professional kitchen that already has velouté on the stove and a cook who knows how mussels behave, so the quantities and times are left out entirely. Here is what to fill in.

The hinge: cook the mussels only until they openDo not overcook: mussels want only three to five minutes over high heat, covered, with one shake of the pan, and should be pulled as they gape -- held in liquid past that point they shrink to rubber. Note that No. 1045 may already have opened them, in which case they need only be warmed through in the sauce here.
What No. 1045 suppliesNo. 1045 supplies the preliminary preparation -- cleaning the shells and opening the mussels -- and the liquor from that step is the "mussel broth" called for here. The wording of that recipe is not reproduced above.
Strain the brothMussel liquor often carries sand and shell fragments. Pour it through a fine sieve or muslin and leave the last spoonful in the pan; without this the sauce grits.
Velouté No. 415A white roux moistened with veal or chicken stock and simmered until it coats. Two or three tablespoons is enough to bind the pan liquor for two quarts of mussels; more turns the dish into a stew. Whisking a beurre manié into the strained broth achieves the same body in a domestic kitchen.
Quantities to work fromRoughly one to two pounds of mussels per main-course serving, one shallot and an equal volume of onion, and roughly a cup of dry white wine for four pounds of shellfish.
The final butter"A piece of fresh butter" means unsalted, cold, and stirred in off the heat so it emulsifies rather than splits. One to two tablespoons for four servings, with the parsley added at the same moment.
ServingRanhofer gives no dish; serve in deep plates with the sauce spooned over and bread alongside. Discard any mussel that has not opened after cooking.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, where he was chef for some three decades, and its mussel chapter is straight French practice transplanted. À la marinière is generally understood as "in the manner of the mariner"; the gloss "fisherman's wife" and the picture of a sailor's dish of shellfish opened in whatever wine was to hand are traditional rather than documented, but the name is certainly applied across French cookery to preparations built on that steaming liquor. What marks this version as restaurant rather than quayside cooking is the spoonful of velouté: a made sauce from elsewhere in the book, thickening a broth that a fisherman would have drunk as it came. Mussels were abundant and cheap along the American coast in this period, though they never gained the standing of oysters in nineteenth-century New York, which is part of why a book aimed at luxury dining treats them briefly and in French dress.