I think I just saw a pig fly by my window because yes gentle lambs I cooked last night and the recipe was quite delicious, yay! As I’ve mentioned my cooking life has been on a bit of a hiatus (for very fantastic reasons so no complaints here) as of late and thus so has my gentle little blog that I love so much.
I had the opportunity to cook last night and decided to ease myself back into it with something simple yet absolutely delicious sounding and what’s not delicious sounding about mussels, herbs, beer, parmesan and crème fraîche? Exactly, nothing! I chose this Belgian-inspired Mussels Steamed in Beer with Crème Fraîche, Herbs, and Parmesan Croutons recipe from the May 2010 Bon Appetit and chose to make a Belgian Endive, Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad with Grapefruit Vinaigrette as a complementary Belgian-ish side dish.
For a mussels dish, which usually takes me about 10 – 15 minutes max to prep and cook, this one took a wee bit longer but I had time so I didn’t mind. One thing I did mind was the fact that some dude took the last of ALL of the mussels right before I got the seafood counter at Central Market. Mind you, this is the second time this has happened to me at the CM so I sighed and then went with clams. They still turned out to be fantastic with the rest of the ingredients and it was my first time to cook with clams…cooking experience bonus!
What I absolutely loved about this dish was the broth…yum. I loved the fresh herbs of tarragon, thyme, parsley, chives and chervil and the combination of the white Belgian beer with the crème fraîche, or in this case I used sour cream, with the two mustards gave it a nice bite and rounded out the broth nicely. Last but not least the parmesan croutons were the perfect addition. Crispy, salty, cheesy and if you let them sit in the creamy, herby, beery broth you will be a happy little clam yourself.
Give this one a try as soon as you can and enjoy a nice Belgian beer along with it. A votre sante!