Mussels again?
Before I finally go to bed... I thought I'd quickly write an entry on Mussels.
JB and I decided to have a mussel feast for Valentines Day. My mother had our son for a few hours, so we went and gathered up food supplies for dinner and dessert (some we didn't have time to prepare yet and will have tonight (Monday) for our date night.
It still amazes me how easy mussels are to cook. Rinse, check (to see that they close tightly when tapped), put into a covered pot, and cook at medium to medium high heat for only a couple minutes. If they are gritty or dirty on the outside, they will need to be scrubbed before cooked and the beards removed, but the ones I typically get are very clean and don't seem to have the beards to cut off (probably because they are not wild mussels). After they open, they are done. Toss any that did not open. From here you can add them to a number of recipes (or just eat as is).
What I decided to do was two experiments.
First, I removed half the shell from 24 mussels and lined the half that still had the mussel in them on a cookie sheet. I cooked some minced garlic in melted butter and brushed the mixture on each of the mussels, making sure each had some garlic pieces as well. I filled each half shell with cheese (8 with dubliner, 8 with gruyere, and 8 with smoked gouda). I baked them at 250 degrees F for a couple of minutes until the cheese melted (one didn't melt) and then broiled them for a few moments (until the unmelted cheese toasted a bit). Then we ate them. Ooh, so decadent!
Second, I cooked more garlic in some butter and tossed in some diced onions. When the onion pieces turned translucent, I added some white wine vinegar and the liquid from the cooked mussels. I took a bunch of mussels, deshelled them, chopped two thirds of what I deshelled (leaving 1/3 whole), and added them to the pot. I added some heavy cream and two more mussels (cooked and still in the shell). When it was heated through, we tried some. Yum! Didn't need any salt or pepper. Next time I would use less white wine vinegar and would love to add some diced potatoes and maybe a few other ingredients (diced carrots, celery, etc?). It was so tasty though!
We still have a bunch of cooked mussels left that we need to eat. I'm thinking more cheesy mussels for breakfast... hee hee. :-)
JB and I decided to have a mussel feast for Valentines Day. My mother had our son for a few hours, so we went and gathered up food supplies for dinner and dessert (some we didn't have time to prepare yet and will have tonight (Monday) for our date night.
It still amazes me how easy mussels are to cook. Rinse, check (to see that they close tightly when tapped), put into a covered pot, and cook at medium to medium high heat for only a couple minutes. If they are gritty or dirty on the outside, they will need to be scrubbed before cooked and the beards removed, but the ones I typically get are very clean and don't seem to have the beards to cut off (probably because they are not wild mussels). After they open, they are done. Toss any that did not open. From here you can add them to a number of recipes (or just eat as is).
What I decided to do was two experiments.
First, I removed half the shell from 24 mussels and lined the half that still had the mussel in them on a cookie sheet. I cooked some minced garlic in melted butter and brushed the mixture on each of the mussels, making sure each had some garlic pieces as well. I filled each half shell with cheese (8 with dubliner, 8 with gruyere, and 8 with smoked gouda). I baked them at 250 degrees F for a couple of minutes until the cheese melted (one didn't melt) and then broiled them for a few moments (until the unmelted cheese toasted a bit). Then we ate them. Ooh, so decadent!
Second, I cooked more garlic in some butter and tossed in some diced onions. When the onion pieces turned translucent, I added some white wine vinegar and the liquid from the cooked mussels. I took a bunch of mussels, deshelled them, chopped two thirds of what I deshelled (leaving 1/3 whole), and added them to the pot. I added some heavy cream and two more mussels (cooked and still in the shell). When it was heated through, we tried some. Yum! Didn't need any salt or pepper. Next time I would use less white wine vinegar and would love to add some diced potatoes and maybe a few other ingredients (diced carrots, celery, etc?). It was so tasty though!
We still have a bunch of cooked mussels left that we need to eat. I'm thinking more cheesy mussels for breakfast... hee hee. :-)