Mussels with Rice in Tomato and Pepper Sauce, Mexican Style

Step-by-step recipe

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. Cook the rice at a very gentle simmer with the lid on until the rice has absorbed all the liquid, 18-20 minutes. Then take the pan off the heat and let the rice steam. That makes it exceptionally tasty and evenly cooked.
3. Heat olive oil in a deep frying pan and fry 1-2 crushed garlic cloves in it. Keep the rest of the garlic for later. Once the garlic is fried, remove it from the oil and discard it.
   
4. 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.
5. 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. Stir the peppers often and don't cover the pan.
   
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
   
9. Simmer everything covered 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.
10. After 10-15 minutes, 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.
    
11. Add the frozen mussels to the sauce. There is no need to thaw them, but since mussels are usually farmed, it is better to cover them with water first, bring to a boil and then rinse.
    
12. Simmer the mussel sauce for 5 minutes after it comes to a boil. Then 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.
    
13. Spoon the boiled rice onto plates and top with the sauce. Sprinkle the mussels with rice with finely chopped parsley.
    
14. By the way, mussels with rice are wonderfully tasty with a glass of good wine.