FOWEY MUSSELS AND SEAWEED BUTTER
DESCRIPTION
This mussel dish celebrates the strong link between Coast and County with our flavoured Trewithen Dairy butter sitting alongside Cornish seafood. It’s inspired by the Breton style of mussels with a garlic cream sauce but we wanted to include samphire and seaweed to give it a real taste of the sea. The anise notes from the fennel are an important player with these steamed mussels and if you want to develop this further we recommend substituting Cornish Pastis for the suggested white wine. If you are cooking this at a dinner party, try serving this with the butter in a scallop shell for a bit of fun.
INGREDIENTS
For the Seaweed Butter:
1 tsp Cornish Seaweed flakes
250g Trewithen Dairy Unsalted Butter
For the Mussels
1.5kg Fowey Mussels
knob of Trewithen Dairy butter
1 tbsp chopped Garlic
2 tbsp finely chopped shallots
1 Fennel bulb thinly sliced
100ml White Wine
150 ml Trewithen Dairy Cornish Double Cream
150g Samphire
METHOD
Use a food processor to fluff up your butter until a little lighter and then mix in the seaweed flakes – blitz until evenly distributed. You could also try adding in some chopped capers or freshly chopped dill. Roll it out onto a sheet of cling film or baking parchment and make a uniform cylindrical butter roll. We often then freeze the roll of flavoured butter and you can slice off a portion as and when you need it. Once you have a sealed roll of seaweed butter place in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. To cook your mussels melt some butter in a large pan and add the garlic, shallot and fennel. Sauté for a minute or two until they start to soften and then throw in the mussels. Place a lid on your pan and allow to steam for thirty seconds on a high heat. Then add the wine. Steam for 3-4 minutes until the mussels are all open and then add the cream and samphire. Bring back to a boil and then serve immediately with sourdough, chargrilled lemon and a slice of your pre-made seaweed butter. We know it’s retro but we still always garnish mussels with some freshly chopped parsley.
