For ➋2 kg North Sea mussels with shells
2 carrots, sliced
1 leek, sliced
2 onions, sliced
salt & pepper
50 cl blond beer*
1 tbs parsley
20 g butter
1 tbs water
Rinse the mussels. Discard all open mussels.
Take a large recipient, put it on heat. Melt the butter. Sauté the leek, onion rings, carrots and parsley with 1 tbs of water. Add mussels. Add pepper. Add beer.
The mussels are ready when they open their clams. Discard all closed mussels immediately.
Serve with rye bread and butter (or, in a Belgian way, with frites and a good blond beer or a fresh pinot blanc).
For a very long time, until the separation of the Low Countries in the 16th century, Zeeuws Vlaanderen, now part of the Holland province of Zeeland, belonged to the county of Flanders, and has remained culturally close to its former neighbour. It is the center of a weird Belgian mussel cult, as most Zeeland mussels are exported to Belgium. (Due to extreme pollution, it was impossible to breed the historic North Sea mussel on the Belgian Coast until recent years.). Wherever they come from, moules aux frites, mussels with frites, is a Belgian national dish.
La grande casserole de moules ('The great mussels' pot'), consisting of a painted mussels' pot and real mussels' shells, is one of the iconic works of Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers of the influential post-war Groupe Surréaliste-Révolutionaire. A widely publicized public fund-raising was organised to prevent the work being sold to an American museum. It is now exposed at the Ghent museum of modern art SMAK. A variant of it, Casserole et moules fermées ('Pot with closed mussels'), has been acquired by the London Tate Gallery.
Read more gueuze and Belgian beer recipes.
