Tour de France '20 - Stage 10: Île D'Oléron to Île de Ré.
After the gluttony of Gascony, a day on the coast was in order. Originally, I was only set on making mussels tonight, but once my fiancé and I saw the Tour De France feature on Île de Ré oysters, all it took was a gaze towards each other and an affirming nod. Two shellfish for dinner was particularly fitting since it was the first time a stage had begun and ended on two separate islands. But let's talk about these mussels (éclade or églade). It starts with a pine plank, creating a faux marsh floor with potter's clay, a playful design, pine needles and fire. The outcome is a mussel like no other I've tasted: meaty but not gamey, charred yet not burnt, and no hint of pine flavor whatsoever. I could never dream of coming up with this on my own. All credit goes to Joel Robuchon and his assiduously curated, and no longer in-print, cookbook: French Regional Food; an endless source of information for this curious culinary ride-along I have undertaken.
Éclade (Pine-roasted Mussels)
Adapted from French Regional Food, Joël Robuchon & Loïc Bienassis
This recipe calls for some interesting items and will really impress your guests. But, you’ll spend about as much time at the hardware store as the grocery store for this one! What’s most important is that you get non-chemically treated lumber and pine straw. I used CleanStraw Pine which, if you can’t find at a local hardware store, you may be able to place a special order. Otherwise, to the forest you go: happy foraging! If procuring from the woods, you’ll just want to clean them and thoroughly dry them out. The potter’s clay can be found at your local craft store.
1 pine plank
Potter’s clay
Pine needles
Mussels, debearded
Soak your pine plank for 30 minutes and clean the mussels. After soaking, apply about an ⅛ inch coating of potter’s clay to one side of the board and place the mussels hinges-up (narrow end: to avoid pine ash from entering mussels while roasting - unlike sautéing, they will not open when you cook them, so don’t use that as your guide) into a decorative design on your plank.
Place the plank in a fire ring (or other safe spot to ignite) and surround the plank and mussels with pine straw (as well as underneath if raised on a firelog stand) and place more pine straw atop of the mussels. Light the pine straw - it should burn for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. As the first round of needles burn to ash, place another generous topping of pine needles, covering the mussels, and light again. After this round burns out completely, your mussels are done.
To open the mussels, you’ll need to grasp both sides of the shells and counter-turn in the opposite direction. Make plenty of mussels so that if there are tough ones to open you can just chuck them. Juxtaposing these warm smoky mussels with cold oysters was great. Here’s a recipe for a Mignonette for oysters.
Mignonette
¼ cup chilled white wine
Shallot, minced
½ tbsp red wine vinegar
White pepper or (freshly ground black pepper)
Whisk all of the ingredients along with a pinch of pepper.
Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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