When preparing mussels, less water, more wine

If you aren’t lucky enough to live where you can go gather your own mussels (as long as there isn’t any red tide to be aware of), you can buy farm raised ones in many fish markets and chain stores. I am fond of mussels, and even like them better than most clams. If I am careful to collect the ones that grow up on rocks under seaweed there is a good chance that they will be free of the tiny pearls that develop in the mussels that made their home on mudflats. Mussels don’t seem to have the half-teaspoon of grit in them that clams seem obliged to stash in their systems.

I asked a few weeks ago for a better recipe for steaming them than I have been using. Ruth Thurston in Machias wrote back with a very nice way of preparing them that she found in the Maine’s Fishermen’s Wives Association seafood cookbook of 1986. She said, “I’ve never cooked mussels before, but I decided to try when I read your request.” She thought the results were good. I also heard from Neila Ambrose in Millinocket, Anne Feeley in Belfast, and my neighbor Adrienne Durkee.

Then just last week I was in the Island Market, and my neighbor Julia Pendleton asked if I’d found a mussel recipe yet. I said I had a few that were sent in, and asked her how she did hers, and she said, “I put a can of beer in and steam them on top of that.” That is what Neila does, along with onions and garlic. Then Linda Durkee said, “What about peppercorns, don’t you grind up some pepper to put in?” And then she told me about the garlic and wine steamed mussels she has at a restaurant in Florida where she goes for the winter, (Maine mussels, no less, and Mainers both going to Florida). And Helen Barrett chimed in, “I use lots of onions, and garlic and a good wine,” usually Chardonnay, and “parsley, flat Italian, parsley because the curly doesn’t have any flavor.” Helen reports that her mussel broth ends up tasting like a very good onion soup when she is done. I asked her how much water she put in, and she said none, and Adrienne had recommended “very little.”

So this grocery store conversation among my island neighbors pointed out to me that they and probably you, too, if you cook mussels, don’t exactly have a “recipe” of the quarter cup of that and half teaspoon of this ilk but rather you have a “way” of doing it. Isn’t that the case with so much cooking?

So I re-examined my old way of doing mussels and concluded a few things: less water and more wine; more garlic, lots more onions, lots of parsley. I think my problem was I was too stingy with the flavoring ingredients up to now.

I had leftovers when I tried this and I will use the recipe Anne Feeley sent along in a future column for mussels on pasta!

Leftover mussels are also handy as an hors d’oeuvre. Save one shell from each leftover one, and lightly toss the cooked mussels in a vinaigrette, and put one on each shell with a shred of pimento.

Mussels Steamed in Wine

Serves 2-3 for main course, or 4 to 5 for appetizer.

2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1 rib of celery, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3-4 medium onions, chopped

1 carrot sliced (optional)

1 bay leaf (optional)

2 pounds of mussels

2-3 cups dry white wine

1/2 cup or more parsley

Put the olive oil and butter in a large heavy pot, and heat them until the butter is melted and bubbly. Add the vegetables and cook them until the onions are soft and translucent. Clean the mussels by removing the strings and checking to see that the mussels are closed tightly. Add the wine and when it simmers, put in the mussels. Add the parsley. Steam them until they are all wide open.

Serve in soup bowls with the vegetables, alone or on pasta or rice, if you wish.

Looking for … I really like carrot cake, and would love to see what recipes some of you might have for one.