Moules Marinières

First things first, I am not a really experienced cook. I normally do the basics things: lasagne, spaghetti bolognese, stir fry and so on but I'm more of a cupcakes kind of girl. I've been scared about cooking seafood before now, just because I've heard it can go so wrong if you don't do it well. However, I've been wanting to try out cooking mussels and it just happened that Le Bistrot Pierre (who I blogged about a week ago here) sent me a recipe for their Moules Marinières. Me and my boyfriend cooked it together but I will admit he did most of the work and I did some chopping and irritating photo taking! We added some extra things to the recipe just to make it more to our taste, so this is how we did it.

You will need:

3500g Fresh mussels
200g Butter – unsalted
500ml Cream – whipping
400g Shallots or onions
500ml Medium dry white wine
60g Parsley flat (but we used curled)
2 x Lemons (large)
2g Bay leaf
10g Thyme
1 Chilli
3 Cloves of garlic
1 Celery stick
A big crusty baguette to mop up the delicious juice

What we did:

First we cleaned the mussels. If you haven't done this before then this basically involves pulling off the beard (the small bit it uses to attach itself to rocks) and then checking they're all closed. If a mussel is open or cracked then don't eat it!

Then I chopped the lemon, parsley, garlic and chilli in preparation for later. Onion and celery was chopped on another board.

Next, we put the onions, celery, butter, white wine, half of the chilli and the bay leaves into the pan with the mussels and steamed them until they were about half opened. This takes about two minutes. Have a glass of wine while you wait.

Then we added the cream and some of the lemon wedges and let it boil until the mussels opened fully.

When done, we added the rest of the chilli, parsley and lemon wedges and gave the pot a shake until it looked like this...

We served it quickly and ate it immediately so there was no time for pictures! My favourite part was using the bread to mop up the delicious creamy sauce left at the end. I really enjoyed my first mussels experience, especially knowing that I can do that at home easily enough. The only lengthy part is preparing the mussels but after that it's a quick and easy dish to make. It's not really salty and fishy like some people would assume. If it's seasoned correctly then there are so many different flavours. I'll definitely be having this again!

Eat, drink and be merry!

Valentine's day is always a good excuse to eat lots of sumptuous food and drink endless cocktails. Nottingham is a good place if you want to find some gorgeous restaurants with reasonable prices to match. We went to Le Bistrot Pierre on Tuesday and I can't speak highly enough of them. The service was impeccable and the food was divine. Our waiter was there the moment we needed him but we didn't feel rushed or like we were being watched over. Sometimes you get the feeling in a restaurant that the staff are glaring at you while you finish your meal. Not here. We had a nice evening and felt really looked after.

Now let's get to the important part, the food. I'm really partial to French food and couldn't wait to get started. We began with a glass of prosecco and mini chorizos roasted in honey before moving onto the starters. I went for chicken liver parfait with plum chutney and sourdough toast and we sat in silence as both of us tucked in to what was the best starter I've ever had. My boyfriend had a beetroot and goats cheese tart but I was too busy swooning over my starter to even glance at his! Then for my main meal I had sea bass with ratatouille,gratin dauphinoise, olive oil and lemon. The fish was falling apart on my fork and tasted divine. I could have eaten that twice over.

I plumped for baked apple tart with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Although this doesn't sound particularly overwhelming, it was incredible. It was sweet, sugary and delicious. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Unfortunately, I was too busy enjoying the food to take photos but there plenty on the website and on their facebook page. Le Bistrot Pierre isn't just in Nottingham, there are nine restaurants across the UK so no excuse not to visit.

Image taken from Le Bistrot Pierre website

Head to their website (here) if you wish you take a look. You can also follow them on twitter @lebistrotpierre

After Le Bistrot Pierre we headed onto one of my favourite cocktail bars. Tilt Bar is on 9 Pelham Street in Nottingham and is fairly tucked away. Follow the stairs and blue fairy lights up to a cosy bar which serves cocktails in jam jars, tiki mugs and brandy balloons. Each cocktail looks different and there's definitely one to suit everyone with such an extensive list. The guys behind the bar truly know how to mix cocktails, they're not just your standard bar men who pour in some cranberry and vodka and give it a shake. This is a proper cocktail experience. Tilt also has live music and a great atmosphere. I was in two minds whether to blog about this and give away my little secret! The cosy atmosphere in Tilt is due to it being a well kept secret and a place with only the coolest of people (in my humble opinion!) Go (here) to view their website and a few of their drinks. My favourite so far is the Razberrito but I've got many more to try! If you're in Nottingham I'd definitely suggest giving both of these places a go.

Image taken from the Tilt website