Grand Marnier Mussel

 

Grand Marnier Mussel Stew was a recipe that was created for a contest given to San Francisco chefs for alternate food creations for Thanks Giving. This mussel stew being an alternative for the traditional clam chowder.
The recipe is in two movements: a fume with mussels in alcohol and cream based soup with potatoes and vegetables.

Fume
• 4 tbsp. Butter
• ½ c Bacon or salt pork or barbecued tofu depending on your pleasure, chopped
• ½ c each carrots, celery, onions, mushrooms, parsley, chopped fine
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed & chopped
• 1 tbs. Each oregano & thyme
• Dash saffron, curry. & fresh cracked pepper
• 5 lbs. Mussels
• 1 cup each brandy and Grand Mariner
Melt the butter; put in the spices. meat or meat substitute, and sauté the vegetables in descending order of toughness. When onions are clear and carrots are soft, dump in Mussels. Don’t bother to clean the shells … adds more flavor. Pour in liquor cover to steam.
Remove Mussels when shells open and meat begins to coalesce. Don t over cook. Place in a pan to cool. Allow fume to simmer. You want to reduce the fume by ½. Remove Mussel meat from shells, discard beard, and save meat.

Soup
• 4 oz. Butter
• 1 slices Bacon. salt pork. or barbecued tofu, chopped
• 2 cup carrots finely grated
• 2 cup celery, onions, portabello mushrooms, parsley & cilantro, chopped course
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
• 2 tbsp. Each oregano & thyme
• 2 c up 1 inch chopped, boiled red potatoes, aldente
• 2 qt. Whipping cream, or ½ & ½, or nondairy creamer—your preference
• 1 tsp. Each curry, saffron & pepper
• ½ cup flour

Melt butter in a 1-gallon soup pan. Put in ham meat and cook till clear. sauté vegetables in descending order of hardness. Save parsley & cilantro to the end. Mix in spices. When onions are clear mix-in the flour. When flour is well mixed add cream. Mix until smooth.

Add boiled potatoes. When Mussel Fume is to the desired concentration, filter it into this soup mixture. Do not pour the last of it for it contains the “enemy”, sand. Add parsley and cilantro at the end. As you serve add the 2 tbsp. of Mussel meat to each portion.