Serves: 4 as a main course, 8 as a starter
Cooking and preparation
Prep time: 10-30 minutes, depending on the cleanliness of the mussels - the more filth and barnacles, the longer it takes.
Cooking time: less than 10 minutes
Cost: Ironically, this is much more at the Orwell price bracket than the Hemingway one. I can usually get everything in it for about a tenner. This not their reputation - one of my most socialist friends seeing me ordering Mussels in a bar once, and saying "Mussels! My god, you're so Bourgeois!".
In fact, Mussels used to have a reputation as the poor man's shellfish. Mussels are cheap and plentiful. In the wild (i.e. near my home town) they grow on coastline rocks and stones but they are also farmed these days. Farmed mussels will often have much more unpleasant beards - make sure you clean them thoroughly.
Farmed Mussels are one of the most environmentally sound types of seafood. Mussels are incredibly abundant, and even when farmed have a positive impact on their beds. Delicious, cheap and environmentally sound...surely not!
Orwell would approve:)
Odd Equipment: A large, heavy based pan. I'm lucky enough to own a giant le creuset pot, which does this perfectly. If you haven't got a pan of sufficent size, it is better to do the mussels in batches than try to cram them in.
Ingredients
4 pints of mussels (about a kilo)
drizzle olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
150ml/2½ fl oz dry white wine
handful of parsley, chopped
crusty bread, to serve
Cooking Method
1. Clean and debeard the mussels.
I tend to clean my mussels in a colander, under cold water, removing tenacious barnacles with a knife. The "beard" is the ropey film which emerges from the shell. It should come away with a little force when pulled.
If any mussels are opened, tap them lightly on a hard surface. If they don't close, get rid of them. I cannot stress how important it is to do this right. If you're not 100% sure on a mussel, discard it. Shellfish poisoning (while the most effective weight loss plan I have ever discovered) is absolutely hideous.
2. Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy-based pan. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until softened, but not browned. You can substitute shallots for onions if you're super-poor, or a massive luddite, but the extra sharpness of the shallots really adds to this dish.
3. Add the wine to the pan and boil for a minute or so to burn off the alcohol. The quality of the wine doesn't really matter - I tend to use the kind of wine with slogans like "Mladić: The Serbian wine nurtured in the refreshing winds of the Chernobyl Plateau", but obviously drinkable wine can make the cooking process more enjoyable...
4. Add the mussels to the pan. Add most of the chopped parsley, cover the pan with a lid (use a plate as a makeshift lid if you don't have pots with lids) and cook the mussels for about 3-4 minutes, giving the pan a shake from time to time. The mussels are cooked when they've opened up. Be sure to discard any that don't open.
5. Sprinkle in the remaining parsley, then spoon the mussels into a serving bowl. Pour over the cooking liquid and serve with some crusty bread.
I recommend dispensing with cutlery and using your first mussel as a rudimentary form of tongs. It certainly makes things more fun!
Serving to the perma-tanned nephew of a Labour front bencher is obviously optional, but can enhance the experience...
My favourite part of this post is the grinning Higby at the end.
ReplyDeleteSo what you're saying is the best part of my writing is the photographs?:)
ReplyDeleteBut who is this beautifully burnished gentleman eating the mussles at the end? He is like a lit magnesium strip.
ReplyDeleteRe: farmed mussels having unpleasant beards
ReplyDeleteIn my experience the rope grown farmed mussels are much easier to deal with as they are less likely to have any sand or grit associated with the beards.
Great recipe though. Bit of effort but almost impossible to mess up (if you follow the advice on dicarding deaduns)