Homemade Moules-frites | SAMSEATS

Welcome to my next YouTube video everyone. Today, as you can see, I'm in my wetsuit. I'm at the beautiful coast in Cornwall and I'm about to go and pick some fresh mussels to make a traditional dish from Belgium, Moultrie. Can't wait to show you guys how to make this. It's so easy to do and so so delicious. Now we're back from our little swim, let's get stuck into preparing the mussels for our dish. First off, we want to make sure the fresh mussels are clean. No matter whether you pick them yourself or bought them in a shop, it's always important to follow this step. With a regular knife, scrape off any barnacles from the outside of the shell. These barnacles contain a lot of grit so are very important to get rid of. Next up, we want to take off any visible beards. These are the small stringy bits of fibre that come off the mussel and attach it to the rocks. Pull it towards the hinge of the mussel and it should pop off with ease. Once your mussels are clean, we want to make sure the mussels are alive. To simply put it, if any of the mussel shells are broken, discard of them. If the mussel is open, tap it on the surface a few times and they should close up like this. Next, we want to cover them in water for around 15 minutes to half an hour. This helps them open up slightly and thus any sand or grit from inside the mussel is washed out. Be sure not to leave them soaking in cold water for too long though as this can actually kill them. Just note, if any of the mussels float whilst in the water for that 15 to 30 minutes, discard of them. This again shows that they have died. When they die, they release gases inside the shell causing them to float. To make sure our fries are crispy, we need to go through a few essential steps that make all the difference. First off, make sure you have the best potato for this. Ideally, a fluffy potato like a russet, maras piper or king edward is best. Rinse off any mud from your potatoes under the tap and cut off any green or black nodes that may be on it. Once you have your beautifully bathed potatoes, we want to cut them into our ideal shape fries. Cut a small side off the potato to help stabilise it when cutting. Place the potato onto the flat side and begin to cut across the potato into discs roughly half an inch thick. Once you have done your first slice of the potatoes, turn them over onto their side and cut into battens, again half an inch thick. And there you have it, a wonderfully cut french fry. So the next step is key to creating the crispy exterior on our french fries. Give the fries a rinse under cold water to rinse off any excess starch. If there is too much starch on the outside of the potato, the sugars on the outside will caramelise way too quickly. This means we won't be able to fry them for as long as we want before they get crispy, unless of course you want burnt fries. We don't, trust me. Place your potatoes into a pan then This next step is something I learnt myself from the amazing Jake Angelopezolt. I'm going to add a few tablespoons of vinegar into my water. The vinegar slows down the breakdown of pectin, a starch inside the potato, therefore helping keep it structure. This really helps preventing mushy, falling apart fries once you have parboiled them. So now you have your potatoes bathing in the vinegar and water, we want to bring this to a boil. Cook for roughly 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the fry. Strain the potatoes into a colander, making sure not to burn yourself then leave to sit for a few minutes to let any water evaporate. Grab yourself a paper towel-lined tray and then place all of the fries onto the paper towel to further dry them out. Whilst leaving to cool, we then want to heat up some oil to get ready for the first fry. Here I have a deep fat fryer, however as I'm sure most of you probably won't have one just lying around at home, don't worry. Simply use a heavy bottom pan, cast iron ideally, and grab yourself some vegetable oil or peanut oil. Tip this into your pan or deep fat fryer and heat to 190 degrees celsius. Owning a Once up to temperature, it's time for the first fry of the fries. Using a slotted spoon or basket, gently lower the fries into the hot oil and blanch for 50 seconds. Here we're looking to form a thin crust on the outside of the fry. After 50 seconds is up, remove the fries from the hot oil and place onto a wire cooling rack to strain. We now want to freeze these fries, ideally overnight, but this is perfect to prep the day before eating. Grab yourself two small shallots, or one large one will do, and finely dice them as best you can. As you can see here, to finely dice my shallots, I like to cut a few slices vertically down across the top and then a horizontal slice through the middle. Yes, people say that this is unnecessary but that is merely for when dicing an onion and not aiming for it to be finely diced. The natural structure of an onion means that you don't typically have to do this, however as we're wanting to get a fine chop, this is the best way to go about it. Next, grab yourself some good quality butter and place it into a pan. Once the butter has melted, add the finely chopped shallots and then a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Usually, I love to add a bay leaf in here too, but as I had none to hand, I didn't worry too much about adding it in. Sweat the onions over a medium heat until translucent and then grab yourself some white wine. Here, I have a leftover bottle from the other day so I'll be using some of this. If you don't want to use alcohol, you can simply replace the wine with vegetable stock and a smash of vinegar. Add in roughly two cups of the wine and bring to a boil. Now your wine has started to bubble and evaporate, it's time to add in your mussels. Tip the mussels into the pan and place a lid on top. Now leave these to cook for roughly four minutes until the mussels have all opened up. Every minute or so, give the pan a gentle shake to redistribute the mussels inside to help ensure that they all get cooked evenly. Whilst they're cooking away, I'm going to prepare a small bunch of parsley to add to the pan. Simply grab some parsley, finely chop it and sprinkle into the pan once the mussels have cooked. Reheat the oil to 190 degrees Celsius and remove the fries from the freezer. Something pretty cool, the smoke-like effect coming from the fries here is what's known as condensation. Random but I thought this was pretty awesome. Once the oil is up to temperature, drop in the fries and cook until a nice golden brown, roughly three minutes. Once cooked, take the fries out and shake off any excess salt. Place into a mixing bowl and coat with salt. Give them a gentle toss and there you have it, a beautifully crisp golden french fry. Tip your mussels out into a bowl, making sure that you leave the lovely juice in the pan left behind. Once you're at this stage, you can then decide whether you want a more soup-like consistency of your broth or a thicker one. Mine was already fairly thick, therefore didn't need to do anything. However, if you have lots of liquid left in your pan, just put it back on the heat for a few minutes and reduce until slightly thicker and more concentrated. And just like that, we've recreated a Belgian classic, Maulfruit. This is so simple yet so delicious, I would definitely recommend giving this a go. If you do, send me some photos on Instagram and I'll be sure to check it out. Until next time!