Friday 12 April 2013

Local food adventures. Mussels


Don't you just love unexpected adventures? When something just spontaneously comes up and makes your day?

Hugo and I went for a quick walk on the beach, as it was, finally, a nice, sunny day. I was in 
Hugo's uncle's slippers, which was not very convenient when we decided to go near the rocks to see if there were any mussels around. We'd had lunch already and dinner was on its way, but we decided to have quite a fancy snack - mussels in garlicky white wine sauce. I have to admit, I'm happy such luxurious snacks do not appear on my plate every day, otherwise I wouldn't be able to enjoy them as much (and I'd be very fat)!


Hugo has been the hero carrying them all, I was the helper when he had so climb onto crumbly shingly cliffs with his hands tied.




The most exciting part was the freshness of the meal: it took abut 10 minutes in total for the mussels to travel from the beach to our mouths, have you ever had anything that fresh?

While Hugo was brushing off any unnecessary bits of the shells, I had chopped up some garlic and fried it up in a generous amount of butter. The house started smelling amazing! I poured in about a glass of white wine and let it reduce on medium heat, while Hugo and I ripped off the little bits that the sells use to stick to the rocks. 


Me trying to discretely hide the excitement
You can find detailed videos of how to prepare mussels very easily, or just buy already prepared ones.



When your mussels are ready and the sauce has reduced a little bit, put them in the pot, cover it with a lid and let them steam for 3-4 minutes.



After they are done they will be open and a lovely orange colour. Discard the opes that did not open - they are dodgy, do not eat them. Unless you desperately want a two-day-holiday hugging the loo (this is a food blog?!?!?)



Drain the mussels (over a bowl), keep the liquid and put it back in to the pot. Pour in some single cream and Herbes de Provence and let it reduce until the consistency becomes nice and creamy. Make sure you don't put any salt in it because trust me, it is salty enough from the mussels! Pour whatever is left from the mussels dripping into the sauce, put the mussels on a plate and pour over the sauce you've just made. That is all!!!!! Enjoy with some bread. (And wine. YUM)



All in all, the ingredients you have used:
mussels
butter
garlic
white wine
cream
herbes de provence



Do try it out, it's really easy and tastes amazing!!

6 comments:

  1. I've never been adventurous enough to have mussels (yet) but after seeing your photos and how easy it is to prepares these, am now willing to try.

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  2. This is unbelievable!!! Envy this possibility to collect mules yourself! Shells arrive to Israel from Norway and I am always worried are they fresh enough... Looks great. Try also other ways to cook - tomatoes, white wine... Yummy!!!

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  3. I will definitely need to cook this for Pavani. I may keep that sauce on the side for dipping the bread.

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  4. Donn, try it out! It's really really easy and tastes amazing, especially when the effort put in is so minimal :]

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  5. I apologize if this is posted twice, I finally got the nerve to try cooking mussels at home. Our local grocery store has been selling mussels for a while, so I brought some home tonight. I followed this recipe We enjoyed them and we will be trying all sorts of recipes in the future (curry mussels anyone?)

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  6. Mussels are quickly becoming a "go to" recipe at home. We're enjoying these quite a bit. Tonight we have mussels from Blue Bay.

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