Moules Marinière for French Fridays With Dorie

We haven't been very good members of French Fridays with Dorie. In fact, the last time we participated was back in October of 2012. Mon Dieu!!! In case you don't know, FFwD is a group of food bloggers and cooks who, every Friday, post their experience making and eating a recipe from the amazing Dorie Greenspan's incredible book Around My French Table. So, with every intention of improving our FFwD participation for 2014, we give you a glimpse into this week's "assignment," mouth-watering Moules Marinière.

Moules Marinière is a classic dish from Normandy that is at the very basic level, mussels in an herby white wine broth. We are big fans of mussels, and recently won a Whole Food Market recipe contest for our Curried Mussels with Lemongrass. But we are also big fans of French cuisine, so we were definitely interested in this particular recipe. First and foremost, it looked so delicious, but also, it seemed very very simple to make. Actually, it only took us about 20 minutes, so it's a perfect weeknight meal, rounded out with a side salad and some bread.We could barely believe how flavorful the broth was, especially with the small number of ingredients and the sheer ease of it all.

Now, we can't give you the recipe, because that's part of FFwD rules. The group wants to encourage people to purchase the book and participate in FFwD along with us. To that end, the recipe for Moules Marinière can be found on page 312 (with a gorgeous accompanying photo on page 313!).

Nonetheless, you can see in our photos all the ingredients ready to go. You might notice that we took a couple of liberties. (When do we not?) First, we were only using two pounds of mussels, so we halved the amount of onions, shallots and garlic, but we kept the same measurements for the herbs and broth so we had plenty of it to dip our crusty bread into. Regarding those herbs, we bought fresh thyme because we will use that for other things, but we are tired of buying and throwing away parsley, so we tried a tablespoon of this parsley paste (which will last much, much longer in the fridge), and we felt it worked just as well. Just keep in mind that the mussels should be clean, that is, de-bearded (our favorite market carries them already cleaned, thankfully), and if they are unopened after cooking, don't eat them but discard them or you will pay the price. 

MMMMMmmmmm...Moules Marinière. Magnifique! 

You will be on our French table again very soon.

And just to prove our recommitment, here's a picture of Dorie and Amy (at Wesleyan U's Foodstock in May, 2012)!

Bison Shortribs Dorie's Way

We love Dorie Greenspan, and the short ribs recipe from her book Around My French Table can not be matched. That's why after we purchased a few pounds of bison short ribs from Creamery Brook Bison in Brooklyn, Connecticut (read about our visit here), we took out her book, found the right page, and got straight to work.

As a general rule, we prefer not to copy recipes from cookbooks into our blog, and we won't do that today. Around My French Table really is a treasure trove of amazing recipes, photos and stories, and we encourage you to buy it (makes a great holiday gift for you or your fellow foodie!). Nonetheless, in the interest of sharing, we have taken step-by-step photographs (with captions!) of how we made the short ribs and we think you can get the gist of it from those. So here goes.

Lay the short ribs out onto a foil-lined cookie sheet, pat them dry and ....

...broil them until they are browned on both sides.

Then turn the oven to 350.

Prepare some herbs (rosemary, parsley, celery leaves, bay leaves, thyme, star anise)...

...and wrap them in dampened cheesecloth.

Cut up some vegetables (parsnips, celery, onion, carrots, leeks, ginger, garlic)...

...and place them in a pan. Season with salt and pepper and toss with a mild oil.

Turn on the heat and start to soften them (about ten minutes).

Then add some tomato paste. 

Keep stirring and cooking until it looks something like this.

Then add about a bottle's worth of red wine such as this shiraz, and a cup of port if you've got it.

Put in the bouquet of herbs.

Bring the whole thing to a boil over high heat until the liquid reduces by about 1/3.

Put the browned short ribs in the pan (bone side up) and cover them with beef broth.

Cover with foil, stick a tight lid on it, and put in the oven at 350 for two hours. No peeking!

Remove the foil, put the lid on loosely, and continue to cook for another hour.

While the meat cooks, make your side dishes and set your table.

When the meat's done, remove it from the pan and let it rest.

Strain out the vegetables from the sauce and reduce the sauce by half.

Serve the sauce over the shortribs; it will still be thin but it's really

tasty from all the herbs and vegetables.

The results? Stellar. Talk about amazing. Falling off the bone. Fork-tender. Not one bit gamey. Slightly sweet yet savory from that wonderfully flavorful sauce. With buttermilk mashed potatoes? You gotta try it! It's a whole lotta love. Enjoy!