Frozen mussels are always available. Fresh ones, on the other hand, you can find from stores only during the cold water season (from September to April), if you absolutely want to make this delicacy using them. Fresh mussels are usually sold in mesh bags and because they have to be kept alive all the way to cooking, you should not bring them into your fridge to wait more than one day before cooking.
Cooking fresh mussels seems to have its own tricks, which I’m going to ignore here since I have used frozen ones. As the saying goes, the taste of frozen mussels is far from the fresh ones, but I actually found the taste very good. I have never used fresh ones and it might be that I never will.
Frozen mussels are very easy to make and there will be no waste because only good, living ones have been chosen for pre cooking and freezing. The portion for two diners mentioned in the recipe contains 500 gr blue mussels – not very much, but enough when you eat them with rice, salad and baguette. We enjoyed our mussels with spinach risotto made from Arborio rice: it demands 30 minutes cooking, but the taste is worth the time. You can by all means do the risotto without turmeric, it’s there only for colour.
The recipe for spinach risotto can be found here.
PORTION: 2 servings
TIME TO MAKE: mussels 15 minutes, Arborio rice 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS:
- 500 gr frozen blue mussels
- 2 shallots
- 3 garlic cloves
- butter
- 1 dl dry white wine
- 2 dl cream
- some black pepper
- salt (to your taste)
- 1 tablespoon of fresh, finely chopped dill (or to your taste)
- 1 tablespoon of fresh, finely chopped parsley (or to your taste)
- 1 teaspoon of fresh, chopped rosemary
Melt the butter in a big kettle and sauté chopped shallots and pressed garlic clove in it.
Add cream, white wine, spices and herbs and let simmer for a while.
Add mussels and simmer for about 3-4 minutes. Shake the kettle few times while simmering.
Tags: blue mussel mussels in garlic sauce spinach risotto
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