Mussels and beer are two well known ingredients of the Belgian cuisine. Most of the time you will drink beer with your mussels. A well known expression in Belgium is the mussels need to swim. But in this recipe we go a bit further, and use already beer to steam the mussels: Belgian beer steamed mussels.
The steaming part is very important for this recipe. First of all, the mussels and the vegetables should not get into contact with the beer. Otherwise, the ones at the bottom would absorb too much of the taste of the beer, the ones at the top far less. Additionally, the ingredients keep much more taste if you steam them. Otherwise, they will lose much of their taste to the cooking liquid.
What kind of beer should you use? A typical Belgian beer of course. For this recipe I like "Blanche de Namur" from Brasserie du Bocq. It is an award winning Belgian wheat beer of extreme high quality, freshness and a lemon fruit taste. If not available in your region, you might choose for another Belgian wheat beer with a fruity bitter taste.
Belgian beer steamed mussels
Ingredients
- 1 kg mussels
- 1 bottle Blanche de Namur 33 cl
- 1 onion
- 1 red chili
- 2 cloves garlic
- 150 gram celeriac
- 100 gram carrots 1 carrot
- 100 gram celery 2 stems
Instructions
- cut the vegetables: celeriac, celery, carrots, onion, garlic, chili.
- Melt some butter in a pan, and bake onion, chili and garlic until tender.
- When tender, add the beer to the onion and bring to cook.
- Mix the mussels and the other vegetables in a steam tray.
- Steam the mussels over the beer for approximately 10 minutes, until they open up completely.
- Serve directly, you can guess what to drink with this deliciousness.
When I was young, I learned that the mussels season is in months with an "r". Although the mussel season is meanwhile already starting in Jury and Aurust, I still stick to that tradition to start only with mussels in September.
The inspiration for this recipe comes of course from the numerous posts and pictures of mussels recipes on Belgian and international social media. A special nomination goes to Krumpli, an English food blogger living on the countryside in Hungary. I was utmost surprised and happy to see him making and publishing this kind of mussels recipe. I always wonder where he gets the ingredients from.
Are you getting curious for more surprising Belgian recipes? Then check the following ones:
If you speak Dutch, you can find the Dutch version of this recipe on gerechtenweb.blog.
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