The Easiness of Mussels

For many cooks, a mussel dinner can be daunting.Bivalves are usually tricky to cook however that's quite the opposite with this traditional seafood. In fact anyone can make them and have an easy  but hearty meal.

Melissa Clark wrote about them and experimented with them in her A Good Appetite column in today's New York Times Dining section. She demystified the myth that mussels are not the easiest  to cook. They  are very simple. Most home chefs have always hated cleaning them because mussels are gritty with sand. All it takes is just a quick rinse under the e tap and make sure they're still living when you put them in the pot. A dead mussel will have an opened shell. Discard these .If you have bought wild mussels the cleaning is a bit more labor intensive. You have to pull out their beards and then soak them in cold water for about twenty minutes. This allows them to expel any residual sand . Afterwards scrub clean again.

Ms. Clark steams them with cauliflower basil and lime. She suggests using a water heavy vegetable like cauliflower works as do  cabbages and mushrooms. For summer you can steam them with corn or tomatoes, both have a high water content,All of these impart a nice flavor on the bivalve's  flesh Mussels can also be steamed with white wine and aromatics for a more sophisticated meal. You can also try  lemon water  and garlic as well or again white wine and oregano. Another way is just  water steamed with a side of butter or tomato sauce for a heartier spin.

Mussels are not as complicated to make as people make them out to be. They are relatively easy to clean and to cook. They make a hearty, briny good  meal with or without vegetables.