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Bisque of Mussels, Jardiniere
Procure forty-eight fresh large mussels. Plunge in cold water and wash thoroughly. Drain and place in a large saucepan with three pints water and half a small bunch of parsley. Cover the pan and boil for fifteen minutes. Drain on a colander and save the broth. Remove the mussels from the shells and pound in a mortar to a pulp. Heat one ounce of butter in a saucepan, add two ounces flour, stir well with a wooden spoon, then add the mussels and broth, with a pint of milk in addition. Season with a teaspoon salt, two saltspoons cayenne pepper and one saltspoon ground nutmeg. Mix for two minutes, and let come to a boil. Skim the scum from the surface, add half ounce butter, divide into very small bits, mix until melted, then strain the bisque through a Chinese strainer, then through a cheesecloth into another saucepan; add a jardiniere garnishing; boil for five minutes more. Remove, pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A classic French-style shellfish bisque built on a roux, the mussel liquor and milk, then strained twice and finished with a vegetable garnish. Most of what needs translating is vessels, measures and the timing of the mussels themselves.
- The hinge: cook the mussels only until they openFifteen minutes of boiling turns mussels to rubber and does nothing for the broth. They open in three to five minutes; lift them out as they do, and let the liquor go on simmering on its own if you want it stronger. Discard any that stay shut, and any that are cracked or refuse to close before cooking.
- QuantitiesForty-eight large mussels is roughly 3½ to 4 lb in the shell, which yields perhaps 12 oz of meat. Three pints of water plus a pint of milk gives at most two quarts, less whatever boils away, which serves six to eight as a first course.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons of cayenne is ½ teaspoon, which is assertive but not unreasonable in this volume; one saltspoon of nutmeg is ¼ teaspoon.
- Hold back the saltThe teaspoon of salt is added before the broth has reduced or been tasted. Mussel liquor is already saline, so season at the end instead.
- Straining out the gritSand settles in the bottom of the cooking pot. Pour the broth off carefully, leaving the last inch behind, or run it through a cloth before it goes into the roux. The cheesecloth pass at the end is there for the same reason, along with any shell fragments from the mortar.
- Chinese strainerA chinois, the conical fine-mesh strainer. A regular fine sieve works; press hard on the solids, since the pounded mussel is what gives the soup its body and flavour.
- Pounding the musselsA food processor or blender does in thirty seconds what the mortar does in ten minutes. Purée the meats with a ladleful of the hot broth to keep them moving.
- Jardinière garnishingVegetables cut into small even dice or fine batons is are the usual reading in this period, typically carrot, turnip, green beans and peas. Cook them separately until just tender and add at the end; five minutes in the finished bisque will not cook raw root vegetables through.
- The rouxTwo ounces of flour to one ounce of butter is flour-heavy by modern habit. Equal weights, about 2 oz each, gives a smoother base for three pints of broth plus a pint of milk; cook it a minute or two before liquid goes in.
Bisque in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries meant a rich pounded soup, originally made with game or pigeon before shellfish took the name over entirely; the thickening comes from the flesh and, in the grander versions, the shells themselves, worked to a paste in a mortar and forced through cloth. That double straining is the signature of the technique, and the labour it demands suited a professional kitchen better than a domestic one. Jardiniere -- broadly "from the garden" -- is the standard French garnish name for vegetables cut into small regular dice or sticks, and appending it to a soup or a joint was ordinary kitchen shorthand in this era. Mussels are the thrifty choice here: cheap, abundant on both the French and English coasts, and long treated as the poor relation of the oyster, which makes this a recipe that borrows the grand method for a humble shellfish.