Mussels are one of those ingredients that for some reason seem to intimidate people, and yet they are really simple to work with and as long as you follow a few simple rules, you are always guaranteed of an amazing dish. Mussels are also relatively inexpensive, relative to other seafood, and they have a wonderful taste of the ocean, not fishy, but ozoney – imagine a walk on the beach in the morning.
The rules are simple, always buy fresh mussels, any good fishmonger will get them in a few times a week, find out what days this happens on and plan your meal around when the freshest mussels arrive. Whilst frozen mussels are easier to find avoid avoid them, as the freezing damages their delicate meat leaving them powdery, also avoid preblanched mussels as a lot of the flavour lies in the steaming process and you want all those precious juices. Choose recipes that are simple to allow the mussels natural flavour to be the star of the show. When it comes to cleaning them this can de a tedious process, but if you are getting them from a good fishmonger ask them to handle the cleaning for you, all you need to ask is that the mussels are cleaned and debearded.
4
servings10
minutes30
minutesMussels are one of those ingredients that for some reason seem to intimidate people, and yet they are really simple to work with and as long as you follow a few simple rules, you are always guaranteed of an amazing dish. Mussels are also relatively inexpensive, relative to other seafood, and they have a wonderful taste of the ocean, not fishy, but ozoney - imagine a walk on the beach in the morning.
The rules are simple, always buy fresh mussels, any good fishmonger will get them in a few times a week, find out what days this happens on and plan your meal around when the freshest mussels arrive. Whilst frozen mussels are easier to find avoid avoid them, as the freezing damages their delicate meat leaving them powdery, also avoid preblanched mussels as a lot of the flavour lies in the steaming process and you want all those precious juices. Choose recipes that are simple to allow the mussels natural flavour to be the star of the show. When it comes to cleaning them this can de a tedious process, but if you are getting them from a good fishmonger ask them to handle the cleaning for you, all you need to ask is that the mussels are cleaned and debearded.
3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt & Pepper to taste
1/2 cup white wine
1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
1,5 kg mussels, cleaned and debearded (Note 1 & 2)
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
1 cup water