How to Cook Mussels in Their Shells with White Wine
Anyone who loves seafood will sooner or later wonder how to cook mussels. Fresh live mussels are usually available, but you have to look for them: we live too far from where they're farmed and caught. Still, buying a pack of live mussels in their shells isn't a problem. If you live by the sea, congratulations, and I even envy you a little, because I really love boiled mussels in their shells.
Marine bivalves of various sizes in their characteristic, recognizable shells are widely used in cooking, both as a dish on their own and in salads, main courses and soups. As a rule, the mussels you find in stores are farmed on various mussel farms and on “mussel beds” far out at sea.
I noticed that live mussels in packs labeled “wild caught” have appeared here. The shells are small, 4-5 cm long, dark brown or dark blue, almost black. Amazingly, the shellfish smell of the sea, with no harsh odor. They're exceptionally fresh, and every one of them opened during cooking. Before cooking the mussels, we only rinsed them.
Boiled mussels are very healthy. They're rich in trace elements and vitamins, have almost no fat and a huge amount of protein. The tastiest mussels in the shell are harvested from the sea in the cold season. Such mussels also contain almost no grit; they're called “clean.”
There's nothing difficult about cooking mussels in their shells. What matters is that the shellfish are alive, and before cooking, they need to be rinsed well and the shells cleaned.
Among the many ways to cook mussels in the shell, the simplest is to boil them in broth, a mix of water and wine, or just salted water. Mussels are also stewed in sauces, such as mussels in tomato sauce; they go into pasta with mussels, risotto, pilaf with mussels, mussel salad without mayonnaise, and they're usually part of paella. A well-known method is à la marinière, steamed with wine, garlic and lemon. Sometimes the shells are fried in a skillet with olive oil and then cooked covered until done, a kind of steaming.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Mussels in their shells 1 kg
- Garlic 5-6 cloves
- Dill 3-4 sprigs
- Dry white wine 1 cup
- Salt, black peppercorns, allspice berries, cloves to taste
- Lemon for serving
Step-by-step recipe
- As I said, mussels need to be cleaned and rinsed before cooking. Live shellfish can be kept for a while in special sealed packaging, into which they're put right after harvesting. In that case they keep for about two weeks at 0-4°C. There's some seawater inside the pack.
- Before cooking the mussels, carefully open the pack: the shells shouldn't have a strong or musty smell. Sort through them, immediately discarding any cracked or empty shells. It's convenient to wash the shells in a colander under cold running tap water. Good-quality mussels usually don't need much cleaning: just wipe them with a sponge and rinse thoroughly.
- Shellfish are usually boiled in a special pot with a tall lid, but any large pot will do. Pour 1 liter of cold water into the pot and add 1 cup of dry white wine. That said, plain water works too. Rinse the dill sprigs and tear them roughly with your fingers. Drop the unpeeled garlic cloves and dill into the water. Add 5-6 black peppercorns, 2-3 allspice berries and 1 whole clove. Add 1 tsp of salt to the water.
- Bring the liquid to a boil and let it boil for about 4-5 minutes. Drop all the cleaned and rinsed mussels into the boiling broth, cover with a lid and cook over maximum heat for 5 minutes. That's quite enough. Don't cook them longer, or the mussel meat will turn tough. A little foam forms during cooking; that's normal. The water also turns slightly cloudy.
- Once the mussels are cooked, scoop them out with a slotted spoon onto a large plate. Next comes an important step: check all the shells and immediately throw away any that haven't opened; they're not fit to eat. An unopened mussel means it wasn't fresh and ended up in the pot by accident. Live shellfish relax their shells when cooked, and the shell opens. Throw away empty shells too; that happens.
- Put all the edible mussels on a platter or in a deep plate. Take the garlic cloves and large dill stems out of the pot and add them to the plate. Add a lemon wedge: mussels are delicious drizzled with lemon juice. In coastal areas of the Black Sea you'll often find mussels in the shell boiled with lovage, an herb with a unique flavor that pairs beautifully with mussels.
- Connoisseurs insist that mussels should be washed down with red wine. Mussel meat is fairly firm and has its own exceptional flavor; give it a try. By the way, be careful. Even if you cleaned the shells well before cooking, you may come across bits of sand and shell. Eating mussels is simple: take a shell in your hand, use a fork or a small spoon to pull out the meat, and eat it with a sip of wine. Put the empty shell on a separate plate.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 50 |
| Prep: | 10 mins |
| Cook: | 5 mins |
| Total: | 15 mins |
| Category: | Snacks and Sauces |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.7
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