This is moules marinière with a Basque accent and cockles in place of mussels. A kilo and a half of shells open in white wine with shallot and garlic, and then the whole thing is finished off the boil with 100 g of Bordier Espelette pepper butter folded into the strained juices. There is no cream and no stock. The sauce is cockle liquor, wine, and butter, and it takes about twenty minutes once the shellfish are clean.
At a glance
- Difficulty: Medium
- Serves: 4 as a starter or 2 as a main. Bordier gives the yield as 1.5 kg of shells rather than a number of covers
- Active time: About 20 minutes, our estimate. Bordier does not state one
- Cook: 5 minutes for the base, 2 minutes for the cockles
- Key ingredient: 100 g Bordier Espelette Pepper Butter
Why this works
Espelette pepper and shellfish is a Basque pairing older than any recipe, and the marinière is Breton. This dish sits between the two. Bordier's Espelette butter arrived in 2008, after Jean-Yves Bordier met a producer of the AOP pepper, and it is AOP Espelette worked into salted butter during churning rather than stirred in afterwards. The heat is fruity and slow, closer to a good paprika than a chili, which is why it can season something as delicate as a cockle without flattening it.
The technique that matters here is the finish. The cockles come out of the pan as soon as they open, their juices are strained, and the butter goes in off the boil, cut into small pieces and swirled rather than stirred. That turns the wine and the shellfish liquor into an emulsion instead of a puddle of melted fat, and it is the reason the sauce coats the shells rather than sitting under them. Bordier butter is churned by hand in Brittany on a traditional wooden malaxeur and carries enough fat to hold that emulsion, provided the pan never comes back to a boil.
Ingredients
Metric is what Bordier specifies, so treat it as the accurate column.
| Ingredient | Metric | US |
|---|---|---|
| Cockles | 1.5 kg | 3.3 lb |
| Bordier Espelette Pepper Butter | 100 g | 3 1/2 oz, about 7 tbsp |
| Shallots | 2 | 2 |
| Garlic | 1 clove | 1 clove |
| Dry white wine | 15 cl, 150 ml | 5 fl oz, about 2/3 cup |
| Flat-leaf parsley | 4 sprigs | 4 sprigs |
| Pepper | To taste | To taste |
Method
Step 1: Clean the cockles and build the base
Rinse the cockles through several baths of cold water, bouncing them against each other in the bowl each time so they release the sand they are holding. Peel and chop the shallots and the garlic. Melt them for 5 minutes in a sauté pan over low heat with 15 g, about 1 tbsp, of the Espelette pepper butter. Pour in the white wine, add pepper, and bring it up to heat.
Step 2: Open the cockles
Add the cockles, cover the pan, and cook over high heat for 2 minutes. As soon as the shells have opened, lift them out and tip them into a hot, shallow serving bowl.
Step 3: Strain and finish with the butter
Strain the cooking juices, then return them to the sauté pan along with the cockles over low heat. Cut the remaining 85 g, about 6 tbsp, of Espelette pepper butter into small pieces and fold it in, swirling the pan so the sauce coats the shells. Serve with the parsley chopped over the top.
Tips from our kitchen
- Give the cockles longer than a rinse. Bordier calls for several baths of cold water. Ours, not theirs: sit them for 20 to 30 minutes in cold salted water first, then lift them out of the bowl rather than pouring the whole thing through a colander, so the grit stays behind.
- Throw away anything that stays shut. After two minutes under the lid, a cockle that has not opened is not going to. Discard it, along with any with cracked shells before cooking.
- Strain the juices through muslin. Straining is the step in Bordier's recipe that most people skip, and it is the one that decides whether the sauce is silky or gritty. A coffee filter or a double layer of cheesecloth in the sieve catches what a sieve alone does not.
- Keep the pan off the boil for the butter. This is a mounted butter sauce, not melted butter. Low heat, small pieces, and a swirling pan give you an emulsion. A simmer will split it into oil and liquor.
- Two minutes is a ceiling, not a target. Cockles are small and go rubbery quickly. Pull them the moment the shells gape rather than waiting out the clock.
- Do not add salt. Cockle liquor is seawater and the Bordier butter is salted. Season with pepper as the recipe says, taste at the end, and add salt only if it genuinely needs it.
How to serve it
Bring it to the table in the shallow bowl it was finished in, parsley scattered over, with an empty bowl alongside for the shells. Bread is not optional here. The strained liquor and butter left in the bottom is the best part of the dish and it belongs mopped up. A Basque Txakoli poured high is the local match, and a dry Muscadet is the Breton one. If you want to see what the other Bordier butters do with shellfish, particularly the seaweed one, browse the Maison Bordier collection.
Where to buy Espelette Pepper Butter in the US
The French Pantry ships Bordier butter across the United States in insulated overnight packaging, straight from the workshop in Brittany.
- Churned Espelette Pepper Butter by Bordier (4.4 oz): AOP Espelette pepper worked into salted butter, mild enough to season shellfish without masking it.
For the rest of the range, including the seaweed, buckwheat, and Roscoff onion butters, browse the Maison Bordier collection.
Frequently asked questions
How much Espelette pepper butter do I need to buy?
The recipe uses 100 g, split 15 g into the base and the rest into the finished sauce. Our blocks are 125 g, or 4.4 oz, so one block covers the whole dish with a little left over.
I cannot find cockles. What else works?
Manila clams or small littlenecks are the closest thing in most US fish markets and behave the same way in the pan, though they may need a minute longer to open. That is our substitution rather than Bordier's, and it does change the dish.
Can I use mussels instead?
Yes, and the result is closer to a straight marinière. Mussels give more liquor than cockles, so expect a thinner sauce unless you reduce the strained juices for a minute before mounting the butter.
Can I substitute a different butter?
Bordier salted butter with ground Espelette pepper stirred through it will get you close. The heat will be less evenly spread, because in the original the pepper goes in during churning rather than afterwards.
How should I store the butter?
Keep it wrapped and refrigerated, and use it by the date on the pack. It freezes for up to three months if wrapped tightly.
Does the butter need to be refrigerated?
Yes. Bordier butter is a fresh, hand-churned product and ships cold. Refrigerate it as soon as it arrives.
Related reading
- Bordier Butter: What It Is, Why Chefs Love It, and How to Use It
- How to Choose Your French Butter: A Buyer's Guide
- La Brújula Spanish Conservas
Recipe and photograph adapted from Maison Bordier, with thanks. The French Pantry is an authorized US retailer of Bordier butter.