The day I made these shellfishes, I was looking for them all over Brooklyn, until I pulled a mussel! 🙂
The day I was making the mussels, I just couldn’t find them anywhere I looked. Finally, late in the afternoon I found a sea food shop in Cobble Hill that was selling them. I bought 2 pounds of nice fresh mussels. 2 hours later, I was ready to start cleaning my mussels, and turns out most of them were already open. I was really upset about that. I had to go on another mussel chase the next day. This time I decided to go to China Town in Manhattan, and they never fail over there. And I was really pleased with the quality of their products.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp of fresh parsley
the juice of half a lime/lemon
2 pounds of fresh mussels
1/4 tsp of chili powder, optional
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 cup of dry white wine
1-2 tbsp of fresh thyme
2-3 cloves of garlic
Let’s get started!
When you are buying the mussels, avoid the ones that are open. They are not fresh, they are dead and consuming them is not recommended. You can ask for them to be clean while you’re at the fish market, or you can clean them yourself.
If you chose to clean them yourself, take away any dead mussels in your batch. The second step is to take their beard off. The beard is a filament matter that is at the side of the mussels, and they are tough and eating them is not pleasant. Pull firmly on it until you take it away. The third step is to take a brush and scrub off any dirt on the mussel, while the water is running.
This is a quick dish, so have all your ingredients ready. Mince the garlic and chop the parsley. Chop the thyme or I usually take the leaves off the stems. Once the fresh spices are ready, let’s get on with the cooking process.
Warm the pot on a low flame, and add the olive oil. Once the oil is warm enough, add the minced garlic and the thyme and let them cook for about 1 minute. Don’t let the garlic cook too long so they won’t brown. After that, add the wine and let the alcohol cook out for about 30 seconds.
Squeeze the lime juice in. I actually prefer to use lime when I am cooking with sea food, over lemons. But whatever you use is fine. After 1 minute, add the mussels in the pot. There might be some excess liquid at the bottom of whichever recipient the mussels were sitting in, be sure not to put it in the pot.
Mussels are naturally salty, therefore it’s imperative not to add salt to this dish. The mussels will give off their own salty juice. Let the mussels cook for 2-3 minutes and no more than that. If you cook them longer than that, they will be though to chew. Once they are done cooking, turn off the flame and add the chopped parsley and mix it in.
And that’s all there is to this quick and easy dish. I ate my mussels with slices of toasted baguette, soaking the bread in the mussel juices. And I had a side of roasted potatoes.
Enjoy!
Thank you for your time
