The Hungry Geographer

Those French love the shellfish and although Brignoles is not a coastal town, it is close enough the Mediterranean to be the home of some great seafood dishes. The riders are probably not hurting too bad after the first stage and may want to take in some relatively lighter food while their bodies still feel good and what better way to do that, than by having some seafood! Now granted the French prefer their shellfish a little on the lighter side (cooked with white wine), but that doesn’t mean you can’t spice up a French meal or recipe with some Cajun or American coastal flavors or additions. I’ve included an ole’ French staple for your enjoyment.

Mussels are good and tasty!

Moules a la Mariniere (mussels in white wine):
1. 5lbs of mussels
2. 6-8 cloves of garlic, (depending on how much you like garlic !)
3. 2 or 3 shallots, chopped finely
4.  a small bunch of parsley, chopped finely
5.  2 pints of Muscadet/white wine
6. 1 bouquet garnish(thyme,bayleaf and tarragon)
7. 2 oz of butter
8.  black pepper

Start by cleaning the mussels (wash under cold running water, scrape any barnacles or seaweed from them, rip off the beards, squeeze the mussels, if they don’t open they’re ok to use, DO NOT USE CRACKED OR OPEN MUSSELS)! Place the clean mussels in a large pan and add the pepper, (don’t be shy), add the chopped shallots, parsley and garlic add the wine and bouquet garnish. Cover and cook for 8ish minutes, making sure all the mussels are now open (discard any that have NOT OPENED during the cooking process). Drop in the butter and cook for a further 5 mins. Then remove the garnish and serve.

For a twist on this dish you can steam the mussels in pot using the white wine with the garnish bouquet placed in the wine. The rest of the ingredients can be added as seasons on top of the mussels, then add the butter and give a quick toss to the mussels before serving. Also it never hurts to serve mussels with garlic bread… Damn I’m drooling already and I’ve got 3 weeks of doing this!!!

-THG

Wine complements any seafood

As the boys leave Monaco en route to Brignoles they will be cycling through the heart of the Cotes De Provence  region of France. This sun soaked area with a variety of soil types along the French Riviera (Cote d’Azur) is known for their rose (pink) wines that are light in color with a fruity taste. About half of the pink wines produced in France come from this region and are usually geared towards tourists that swamp the region each summer.The main grape varieties in this region that compose the rose wines are Grenache and Cinsaut. A few red wines can be found in this area as well and are made from Carignan a local red grape with intense flavour. -TDG

Tags: Brignoles, French food, mussels, recipes, rose wine, TDF

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 7:25 am and is filed under Recent travel, Summer eats, Tour de France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.