Mussels in saffron cream

The combination of white wine and butter is magical. One could do well enough with that alone as a sauce. But if you would build out the profile with aromatics, vegetables, other flavored ingredients, herbs/spices, and build up the volume then you will have a soup that is amazing. It's actually hard to go wrong. For instance, this soup neglected bay leaf and parsley, two standard ingredients, but they were not the slightest bit missed. 

Usually croutons are served with aioli or rouille. The croutons are toasted slices of baguette, not little cubes of dry bread sold in a bag or a box. But here dinner rolls substitute for toast. The ingredients that usually go into a topping instead went directly into the bread, except for olive oil. The bread dough was not started the evening before, so this bread is rushed. By rushed, I mean a few hours to proof. The rolls are baked at high temperature, as high as the oven will go, the oven chamber is steamed. 

The ingredients for the sauce are extended to a full blown soup, and what a soup it is. I'd be quite satisfied if I were served this in a restaurant and my compliments would go to the chef. As the cook here, I accept those compliments. Thank you very much.  These ingredients are simple enough. They are assembled mise en place then tossed into a pot, sturdiest first, on down the line to the most delicate, finally the mussels and fish then the lid is clamped down. They cook this way for only a few minutes.  The process takes only as long as it takes to soften a few carrot discs. 

The photographs are presented in the order they were taken, that is the order in which things happened, not in the order that makes it most clear. It is left to you to make sense of it. 

Four dinner rolls.

Whisked in a bowl:

* 1 cup all purpose flour

* 1/3 teaspoon salt

* 1/4 teaspoon cracked pepper

* 1/8 teaspoon chili pepper flakes

* 1/2 teaspoon oregano

Separately in a cup

* 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons hot tap water

* 3/4 teaspoon commercial dry active yeast

Mix ingredients with a dinner knife. The dough should be sticky. Work the dough until it submits to your authority. You will feel the dough develop gluten molecular structure. It becomes more pliable and stretchable. Books say this takes ten minutes pushing it around on a work surface, but that is nonsense. It all depends on how brutal you are with the dough. I do this in my hands for about four minutes, stretching, and pulling and folding and rolling. The dough doesn't have a chance once I get my hands on it. The dough seems to sense this and submits early to end the abuse.  

U'p! There's that déjà vu thing again. I am repeating myself repeating myself. It fells like this sequence was already shown a dozen times, or maybe it was one time. 

[There is a really bad drummer outside at the Art Museum. He's starting to get on my nerves. That happened before too.]

About an hour and a half elapsed, maybe two hours. I didn't pay attention. The dough reached to the top of the plastic. It deflated and pulled away from the plastic covering when I plunked the bowl onto the work surface. Donk. Pffffft. 

Stretched out to an approximate square. 

Folded in thirds

S--t--r--e--t--c--h--e--d

S--t--r--e--t--c--h--e--d again.

Do to each segment the same that was already done to the larger batch.

Pinch shut the three open sides. Push in its guts where necessary. 

 

The rolls are covered and proofed a second time while ingredients for the soup are assembled. I used what I have. If I had something else, then that would have been used. 

Wine and butter (not shown) for a sauce. Then cream to extend that sauce to a soup. Three Crabs™ fish sauce to fortify the seafood essence of the soup without going overboard into actual fishiness. So moderation then with the fish sauce. Mirin to touch that portion of the tongue that is satisfied by sweetness. Again, moderation to avoid becoming saccharine. 

Saffron goes very well with cream and with tomato. Here the saffron (not shown) is paired with cream. Often you will see tomato paste in recipes. That is to strengthen the thing being cooked to impart a more satisfying sense of substance. We like tomatoes, but we prefer them raw. Therefore there will be no tomato paste, no tomato sauce, no tinned tomato, no catsup, just raw tomato sitting in the bottom of the bowl waiting to be heated by the finished soup. 

The oven is up to temperature. The rolls will take ten minutes to bake. A pot for the soup is heated. The soup will be built up each ingredient upon ingredient at the same time the rolls are in the oven. But the oven must be misted continuously without loosing heat. So it's back and forth between misting the hot oven to maintain water vapor in the chamber while simultaneously building up a soup ingredient by ingredient. Everything is ready. It's fun!

The soup is not shown being built up because it's just a bunch of things in a pot one at a time. When the lid to the pot is uncovered, voila! It is bubbling away, the mussels are all opened, the cream turned pink from the saffron, the fish which was put in frozen is cooked completely without being overcooked. 

ARTS !