Mussels with White Wine and Curried Mouclade Sauce (French Mouclade à la Crème)

This mussels dish, a famous recipe from La Rochelle on the west coast of France, combines fresh seafood with a creamy curry sauce. For some reason, this lesser-known cousin of moules mariniere has gone out of fashion. That's to say, I haven't seen it on a menu or eaten it anywhere outside of my kitchen for yonks. And yet it's so good, with its creamy, mildly curried sauce.

Bouchot Mussels:
fresh Bouchot mussels (4 kg)
1 bottle white wine (750 mL)
3 shallots, chopped
1 branch thyme
1 bay leaf
butter (10 g)

Curried Mouclade Sauce:
Echiré thick cream (250 g)
1 lemon, freshly squeezed
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1 Tbsp. curcuma powder
butter (100 g)
all-purpose flour, unbleached (90 g)

Cooking the Mussels:
Sweat the shallots with 10 g of butter in a covered casserole. Add the thyme, bay leaf and white wine. Bring to the boil, then add the mussels and cover. Cook until all the mussels are fully-opened. Drain and save the cooking juice, filter it with a strainer into another casserole.

For the Mouclade Sauce:
Make a white roux in a casserole by stirring the butter and flour and cooking on low heat. Leave to cool. Infuse the cream, curry, curcuma and lemon juice at ambient temperature. Pour the mussel juice over the roux, leave to cook until it thickens. Add the infused cream, then pour through a conical muslin strainer.

Finishing Off:
Shell the mussels but keep the half-shell where the mollusc is attached, line them up in a flat sauté dish (made of copper if possible) and cover with the boiling sauce. Serve immediately.

Makes 8 servings.