Moules mouclade, as big a hit as Beyoncé

Mussels were probably the first thing I ate as a child that I knew at the time was ‘an acquired taste’. They made me feel impossibly grown up, coming with a brigade of bowls, one for the mussels themselves, one for chips, one for bread, one for empty mussel shells, and a little lemon-scented bowl of water to dip my fingers in. My dinner alone must have taken up half the table. From then on, I ordered mussels every time they were on the menu, knowing they would transform me from a gawky 12-year-old girl wearing cargo pants into a veritable sophisticate. But I never once tried moules mouclade.

Like Socrates, Casanova and Beyoncé, mouclade is usually known only by its first name, la mouclade – the ‘moules’ implied by the ‘mouclade’. The dish hails from the coastal town of La Rochelle, in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France, and the mouclade sauce is curried. Sometimes there is saffron alongside the curry powder.

While you can’t move for moules marinière in France, and it is still a mainstay of restaurants outside its home country, mouclade’s presence is limited both inside and outside France. When I mention to friends or family that I’m working on a mouclade recipe, they look nonplussed, and even my shellfish-loving father, who introduced me to mussels, draws a blank. Perhaps it’s the curry powder that has pushed it out of fashion, but it’s actually a very elegant dish, and here’s the truth: I think I prefer mouclade to the more famous marinière.

The initial preparation is very similar to marinière: the cleaned mussels are steamed in white wine until they open their shells and reveal their sherbet-orange flesh. The mussels are then drained, and the reserved wine and cooking liquor is used to make a creamy, spiced sauce that is then poured back over the mussels before serving.