Mexican-Style Mussels with Rice

Rice

1. Before making the mussel sauce, cook the side dish: boiled rice. Round-grain rice with low or medium stickiness works best. Egyptian Camolino rice is ideal. That said, other rice will do too. We tried cooking parboiled rice and adding the mussel sauce, and the mussels with rice turned out very well.

2. Rinse the rice well. Bring water to a boil in a saucepan, using twice as much water as rice by volume. Add a couple of pinches of salt and a tiny pinch of curry powder to the boiling water, literally just a little. The curry will turn the rice a lovely yellow. You can add turmeric or saffron instead.

3. Add the rice and cook at a very gentle simmer with the lid on until the rice has absorbed all the liquid, 20 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and leave the rice covered for about 10 minutes to steam. That makes it exceptionally tasty and evenly cooked.

Mussel sauce

1. Get the sauce ingredients ready: the mussels and vegetables.

   

2. Heat olive oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat and fry 1-2 crushed garlic cloves in it until golden. Keep the rest of the garlic for later. Remove the fried garlic from the oil and discard it.

   

   Many will ask why flavor the olive oil with garlic if the recipe uses garlic anyway. The thing is, olive oil has a distinctive smell and taste. I don’t like it, by the way, though perhaps I’m just used to sunflower oil. Frying garlic, first, changes the aroma and makes it very subtle, and whatever you fry in that oil soaks it up. Second, the oil gets thoroughly heated as it fries, so the mussels with rice won’t smell of oil.

3. Seed the bell peppers, red or any color, and cut them into small pieces the size of a small coin. No bigger, since we are making a sauce, not a vegetable sauté. Fry the chopped peppers in the oil until lightly browned, 5 minutes. Stir the peppers often and don’t cover the pan.

   

5. Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and peel them. Halve the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Roughly chop the tomato flesh. Seed the chili pepper and chop it finely. If you happen to have no fresh chili, ground chili will do; add as much as you like. Add the chopped tomatoes and chili to the fried bell peppers. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a pinch of ground nutmeg, or more.

   

6. Simmer everything covered over low heat for 10 minutes, until the tomato flesh softens, stirring from time to time.

   No extra liquid is added: the vegetables will release enough juice. But if you like, you can add a splash of dry white wine; it won’t hurt and will only improve the flavor.

7. Finely grate 1-2 garlic cloves and finely chop the green onions. Add the onions and garlic to the sauce, stir and simmer covered over low heat for 10 minutes.

   

8. There is no need to thaw the frozen mussels. But since mussels are usually farmed, it is better to cover them with water first, bring to a boil and then rinse. Add the mussels to the sauce.

   

   Simmer the mussel sauce covered for 5 minutes after it comes to a boil. Uncover and cook until the excess liquid evaporates. If you didn’t add any liquid, it will cook off in a few minutes and the mussel sauce will become nice and thick.

   

Serving

1. Spoon the boiled rice onto plates and top with the sauce. Sprinkle the mussels with rice with finely chopped parsley.

   

   By the way, mussels with rice are wonderfully tasty with a glass of good wine.