December 11, 2007
By: kali
Category: California, Low-Carb, Main, Sauce
For such a rich-tasting dish, this has surprisingly few calories and packs a huge protein-wallop. It’s also a one-pot meal, very quick to assemble, and relatively inexpensive for a seafood dish.
Though I love fresh mussels, they’re hard to come by in many U.S. supermarkets, and I rarely have time to wrestle with bearding the beasts before even beginning to get around to preparing dinner. Lately, though, I’ve been finding large bags of frozen, pre-cooked mussels in my local Turkish and Asian markets in Berlin. My guess is that they’re also available in the States. Here they’re quite cheap, and I can feed four people very well for under 10 Euros. I love how easy they are to use — they’re already clean and simply need to be heated through.
Mussels have a powerful flavor and need to be countered by other strong but complementary tastes. In this dish I use a combination of garlic, shallots, chilis and hot peppers and balance it with white wine, cream and orange peel. Any citrus peel would be interesting, and next time I’ll try it with lemon. You can serve these mussels in a bowl like a stew, or spoon them over rice or pasta if you can handle the carbs.
- » 3 tablespoons olive oil
- » 1 large shallot, minced
- » ½ cup celery, chopped\
- » 1 whole leek (just the white part), minced
- » 1 teaspoon crushed hot red peppers, or to taste
- » 1 cup dry white wine
- » 1 teaspoon fresh orange peel, minced
- » 1 cup cream, or half-and-half
- » 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- » 4 tablespoons fresh basil, minced
- » 2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried
- » 2 lbs. frozen mussel meat
- Heat the olive oil in a soup or stew pot large enough to hold all the ingredients.
- Add the celery first and cook 2-3 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Add the leeks and cook for another 2 minutes. Then add the garlic and shallots and cook 2-4 more minutes until all ingredients are somewhat soft.
- Pour in the wine and add the orange peel. Bring to a boil and let simmer covered for 4 minutes. Uncover and let it simmer another 1-2 minutes.
- Add the cream, tomato paste, basil and rosemary and bring to a boil once again. Immediately add the frozen mussels to the pot and stir until all the mussels are coated with the warm liquid. Keeping the heat at a simmer, cover the pot and let cook for about 10-15 minutes, stirring every 4-5 minutes to prevent the still-frozen mussels from clumping. You want them to heat through, but not to cook further.
- When the temperature of the dish is as warm as you desire, take the pan off the heat. Eat the mussels by themselves, or pour the whole dish over pasta or rice.
Nutritional Information
- Serving size: 330g
- Calories: 332
- Calories from fat: 108
- Total fat: 12g
- Saturated fat: 3.6g
- Cholesterol: 75mg
- Sodium: 685mg
- Total carbohydrates: 14.9g
- Dietary fiber: 0.8g
- Sugars: 1.5g
- Protein: 28.1g
- Vitamin A: 19%
- Vitamin C: 35%
- Calcium: 10%
- Iron: 53%
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Source
Kali Tal
Cuisine
California
Difficulty
Servings
4 servings
Time
Equipment
- cutting board
- chef’s knife
- soup or stew pan
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