How to Cook Mussels

Find out how to cook mussels the Italian way.. In Italy people cook mussels very often during Spring and Summertime, when the mussels are at their best.

Most of the time you will find mussels already cleaned for cooking. Otherwise, you just need to wash them carefully and take out the small string that comes out of the shell using a small knife. The most spread and common recipe for cooking mussels used in Italy is to make a kind of soup with it, to be eaten with bread. It is a very common antipasto during Spring and Summertime.

Ingredients (4 people):

• mussels;

• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil;

• 3 cloves of garlic, minced;

• 2 tablespoons of minced parsley;

• salt;

• 1 can (14oz) of peeled tomatoes (optional)

How to prepare it:

Put the oil into a pan with cover that can contain all the mussels and turn on the gas.

Add the minced garlic and the parsley and lei them fry for a while, without colouring. Add then the tomatoes (if you want a red sauce) and mix again.

Add the mussels, mix it well, add little salt and when it starts to boil turn the gas to low and cover the pan.

Check it after a couple of minutes and mix the mussels again. When they are open, they are ready to be eaten.

Cut the bread (the best one for this soup is ciabatta) in slices and serve together. People will take each mussel by its shell, eat the shellfish and place the empty shell in another dish you can place at the table.

The bread can be served also inside the bowl together with the sauce. Place a few slices and serve the others into a basket as they will get soft quickly inside the soup.

A very tasty recipe for mussels is pasta with mussels. Just prepare it as the recipe above, adding 1 more can of peeled tomatoes and leaving them cook for about 15 minutes before adding the shellfish. Cook the pasta you prefer (usually long pasta as spaghetti or linguine) and dress it with the sauce.

You can use your fantasy regarding how to cook mussels as you can even prepare them stuffed!

Buon appetito!

Mussel Recipes:

• How to Cook Mussels
• Mussels in White Wine Sauce
• Recipe for Mussels

Seafood Pasta Recipes:

• How to Cook Mussels
• Tuna Noodle Casserole Recipe
• Garlic Shrimp Pasta Recipe

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