Quick Hit: Perfected Steamed Mussels

Eat the filter feeders, become the pollution

As part of a new series - Quick Hits - I’ll document recipes I’ve spent quite some time toying with and perfecting. If these are borrowed from an existing recipe and modified, I will share the original. Otherwise, consider these novel creations or go-to essentials we eat weekly.

Now to the recipe - Steamed Mussels!

When I was a boy, my family would often travel to…

Just kidding; no SEO sob story, just the recipe!

Steamed Mussels

You can steam mussels in basically any flavored broth, but to me, nothing is as good as a classic lemon, wine, and cream sauce. We make these somewhat regularly, and perfecting the recipe is a game of small iterations on the base ingredients. Tiny changes to the amount of wine or butter will result in radically different flavor profiles. You can use this to your advantage by using flavors inspired by cuisines as broad as Thai or Italian.

This most recent batch stayed in on the traditional side and was by far the best yet - rich and creamy, perfect sour from the lemon, and a packed with deep flavors that will make you dream about the next batch.

Ingredients

• 1 bag of mussels, cleaned and debearded
• 1 large lemon, juiced
• 5 cloves of garlic, crushed/minced
• 1/2 large white onion, very fine mince
• 1 cup shitty white wine, Sauvignon Blanc preferred
• 1 cup low sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 6 Tbsp butter
• 1 box fettuccine or other long, flat noodle pasta
• Loaf of crusty bread
• Generous kosher salt and coarse black pepper
• A bit of chopped parsley

Steps

1. Start with some mise en place and prepare your ingredients. Finely mince your white onion and crush your garlic and set aside into individual piles. Pour your wine, broth, and cream into measuring cups. Chop your parsley and throw it in a ramekin. Your aim is to get your workspace ready by prepping the ingredients you need before you start cooking, limiting stress and mistakes.
2. Next, clean and debeard the mussels. Cleaning means scrubbing off obvious barnacles, muck, or other unsavories. Debearding means removing the seaweed/hair looking bits from the flat side of the mussel. You'll know it when you see it.

   This is also the time when you get rid of any cracked or dead mussels. Dead mussels are typically open in the bag, but may also be slightly cracked open. If slightly cracked open, you can try to push the mussel closed to see if it stays closed and thus is alive, or just move on. I don’t play the game of risky mussels - they’re cheap.

   Set mussels aside in a bowl.

3. Try to time your pasta to finish about the same time as your mussels. That means starting the pasta (actually dropping it in) right around when you start cooking the onions. Do that now.
4. In a large saucepan with a lid, add your butter and cook in the onions until translucent (or push it for more flavor). Add salt and pepper now and at each step. Salt here helps sweat out the onions. Add your garlic and cook for 30 seconds to a minute, stirring constantly.
5. Deglaze the onions and garlic with wine, then add the lemon juice, and finally add the broth. Let this combination come to a hard simmer.
6. Add your mussels and cover, steaming for 2-3 minutes until all mussels are open.
7. Strain out the mussels and set aside. Assuming your pasta was timed correctly, handle that but save a ladle of the pasta water and add it to the broth. Add the heavy cream and cook down for 3-5 minutes until the sauce starts to thicken.
8. Add the pasta, add back the mussels, stir, and serve! Top with parsley and eat with crusty bread.

The result is a deliciously complex, creamy, addictive broth that perfectly matches the briny mussels. I guarantee you’ll find yourself snagging mussels every time you can from here on out! The same recipe will work with clams as well - just aim for the smallest clams that you can find.

Have a different take on mussels or a recipe you want to see me cover? Let me know!