3 Times Thursday - Summer Mussels

Mussel /ˈməsəl/ : noun, any of a number of bivalve mollusks with a brown or purplish-black shell. 

For this week's 3 Times Thursday, we encourage you to try one of our recipes for mussels. A New England staple, mussels can be purchased relatively cheaply at your local seafood market or supermarket in two-pound mesh bags. Summer always means seafood to us, and mussels appear on our menu a few times throughout the season. Here are three flavorful ways to enjoy mussels - try them all with plenty of crusty bread. Don't forget to let us know your fave!


3. Mussels in White Wine Broth

Ingredients:

2 pounds mussels
1 large white onion, peeled and roughly chopped
6 whole garlic cloves
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped parsley
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 stick butter, divided
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 bottle dry white wine (like Pinot Grigio)

Put half of the mussels in the bottom of a large stock-pot. Top with the white onions, garlic cloves, green onions, parsley, tomatoes, 3/4 stick of the butter cut into quarters, some salt and pepper, and then put the other half of the mussels in. Add the white wine and the other 1/4 stick of butter and cover with a lid. Place over high heat and bring to a boil, then allow them to steam for about 10 minutes, until they are all open.

2. Cockles and Mussels

Ingredients:

2 pounds mussels
1 pound cockles or small clams
4 lemons, halved
1 bunch green onions, chopped into 2-inch pieces
1 handful fresh parsley

2-3 stems of fresh tarragon
1/2 stick butter
1/2 bottle white wine (like Pinot Grigio)
2 cups water

salt

Put all the ingredients in a large stockpot, cover the pot, set it over high heat and cook for 15-20 minutes, until all shells are open.

1. Curried Mussels with Lemongrass

Ingredients:

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons red curry paste

1 cup hot water

1 stalk lemongrass, chopped

2 pieces dried galangal

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon liquid sugar (simple syrup)

1 can light coconut milk

2 pounds mussels

In a large pot, heat the olive oil. Add the curry paste and stir to fry for about a minute. Stir in the water, then add the lemongrass, galangal, fish sauce, sugar and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the mussels, stir to coat, and put a lid on the pot. Cook, covered, over low heat until the mussels open, about five minutes. 

Mardi Gras Crawfish Desire

Circumstances beyond our control prevented us from having our annual Mardi Gras Madness party. But a 5-pound bag of cooked, frozen crawfish gifted to us by Amy's mom and a desire for the taste of New Orleans made today feel like Fat Tuesday nonetheless.

Amy created this recipe long ago, based on a favorite dish served at Jazz Fest called Crawfish Monica. It can be made with shrimp, but crawfish is much more authentic, so if you can get it, go for it. Even if it's frozen.

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!

Crawfish Desire

Ingredients:

1 lb. seafood: crawfish (cooked and peeled) and/or shrimp (raw, peeled and deveined)
1 stick unsalted butter
1 pint half-and-half
½ cup chopped green onions
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
Creole seasoning to taste (the more, the spicier, and I prefer Tony Chachere’s)
1 lb. pasta (rotini if you’re being authentic)

Put water on to boil pasta and cook pasta al dente. Melt butter and sauté garlic and green onions until fragrant. Add shrimp and/or crawfish and cook for three minutes. Gradually add half-and-half, then the thyme and Creole seasoning, stirring well*. Cook five minutes so that the seafood is cooked through and the sauce becomes thickened. Add cooked pasta and let the dish sit over low heat for five more minutes, stirring often. Serve with crusty French bread, of course!

*It is important to stir often so that the sauce doesn’t break (separate).

Curried Mussels with Lemongrass *Award-Winning*

The lemongrass we planted in our garden grew very well. It is almost as tall as Amy! As it starts to get cooler out, we are trying hard to use up all the herbs and vegetables that are still growing abundantly in our front yard. So, we wondered...what would lemongrass be fabulous in? Then we spotted a 2-pound bag of Prince Edward Island mussels at our market for $4.99, and we had our answer.

When you are cooking with lemongrass, you are really only using the bottom part of the stalk. First you chop off the long grassy part and then peel away the outer layers of the bottom stalk, kind of like you do with fresh corn. Underneath should be a pale yellow fleshy stalk that is soft and fragrant. Cut off and discard the bulbous end, then slice thinly about 2/3 of the way up. The green and woody upper part can be used for infusing flavor into a broth, but is not very edible, so should be removed before serving.

This dish uses some random ingredients besides the lemongrass, that is true. But these are things we buy when we see them, often at Asian markets, and tend to keep around our pantry when we are looking to make something unusual or slightly exotic. For New Englanders anyway.

So this dish includes red curry paste and fish sauce which we can find in our normal grocery store, as well as dried galangal, which we bought in Boston's Chinatown, but can be replaced with some grated fresh ginger. Even lemongrass is hard to get around here (although if you need some, we have plenty!!!). If you can't find it, substituting some grated lemon zest would do the trick.

While the broth, with all these exciting ingredients, was smooth, sweet, spicy and citrusy, it turned out slightly thin and didn't seep into the mussel shells as well as we wanted it to. We just ate all the mussels then sopped that tasty broth up with some fresh crusty bread. To solve that problem in the future, we might leave the hot water out of the recipe. 

Curried Mussels with Lemongrass

Ingredients:

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons red curry paste

1 cup hot water

1 stalk lemongrass, chopped

2 pieces dried galangal

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon liquid sugar (simple syrup)

1 can light coconut milk

2 pounds fresh PEI mussels

In a large pot, heat the olive oil. Add the curry paste and stir to fry for about a minute. Stir in the water, then add the lemongrass, galangal, fish sauce, sugar and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the mussels, stir to coat, and put a lid on the pot. Cook, covered, over low heat until the mussels open, about five minutes. Serve with crusty bread.

Jazz Fest Crawfish, or Crawfish Monica Copycat

We promised a follow-up post to our Connecticut Crawfish Boil, one that describes what we did with that pound or so of crawfish tails that we forced ourselves not to eat. The leftovers, if you will. Well, with this particular dish, "leftovers" is not a word we would use. In this dish, the crawfish are still the star of the show, spicing up a cream and butter pasta that is known the world over from it being served at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, aka Jazz Fest. The dish is called Crawfish Monica.

According to the article "New Orleans Nostalgia" by Ned Hemard (found on the New Orleans Bar Association website here), Crawfish Monica was invented by the president and head chef of Kajun Kettle Foods, Pierre “Pete” Hilzim, who named the recipe for his wife. It has been served at Jazz Fest since 1982, and for several years was only available there or via shipment from Kajun Kettle. These days, some grocery stores local to New Orleans carry it.

As with most "secret" recipes, there are many "copy-cats" and we'd like to offer ours. Hemard writes, "The ingredients remain a secret, but one can rely that butter, cream, onions and garlic are involved." Indeed. Those four ingredients are the starting point for our version. Although it's been many years since Amy has attended Jazz Fest, she knows Crawfish Monica when she tastes it. And this creamy crawfish concoction with a kick is pretty darn close to the real thing. Without the lines!

Melt butter

Add garlic and chives, and...

...cook to soften.

Add crawfish, then...

...milk and cream.

Creole Seasoning adds a salty, spicy kick.

Cook to thicken, then...

Pour over pasta. Allow to cook over low heat for 10 minutes or so.

A. Ma. Zing. Ness.

Jazz Fest Crawfish, or Crawfish Monica Copycat

Note: shrimp or crab are great substitutes for crawfish if you can't get mudbugs where you live.

Ingredients:

1 pound "leftover" crawfish tails, boiled and peeled

1 stick unsalted butter

6 cloves garlic, minced

6-8 fresh chives, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

1-2 tablespoons Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning

1 pound rotini pasta

Set salted water to boil in a large pasta pat. In a large saute pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic and chives and cook 2-3 minutes, until softened. Add crawfish and saute for 2-3 minutes until warmed through. Stir in cream and milk, then add Creole seasoning to taste. Cook for 10 minutes until sauce starts to thicken. Cook pasta according to package directions, then drain and return to pot. Pour sauce into pot with pasta and place over low heat. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often, and allowing pasta to soak up the sauce. Enjoy!

Oyster Tuesday

Have we ever told you how much we love our neighbors?

Today, "Whit" stopped by with a styrofoam cooler half filled with fresh oysters that his oyster-farmer-buddy just harvested on Cape Cod this morning. He could hardly wait to come over and share.

We feasted for about a half-hour straight. We love our neighbors. Thanks, Whit!

A Spring Afternoon in Boston's North End

Tourists, locals and college students alike flock to the North End of Boston for great Italian food. However, a spot on Cooking Channel's Unique Eats seafood episode drew us past Bacco's and Al Dente and straight to Neptune Oyster for some amazing fresh seafood.

The plate glass window with Neptune's trident is the tell-tale sign that we've arrived at our desired location. The oyster shucker/tender of the raw bar inside that window, silently shucking briny oysters and clams, and arranging Jonah crab claws in a gorgeous pattern, tells us all we need to know. We step in the small doorway and out of the windy sunshine. The place is much smaller than we had anticipated, and crowded, even at the later-than-usual 2:00 lunch hour. Men in suits are lined up at the bar slurping their way through a choice of over a dozen different types of oysters, from both coasts.

The (only) server/host offers us a table as soon as one opens up. Friendly, accomodating and certainly enthusiastic, he makes our exquisite lunch all the more enjoyable with his affable nature. He pours water out of a large, wide-mouthed jar and gives us just enough time to peruse the menu. Chris is all about the oysters, and orders a surprisingly few six, two each of three types of Atlantics, to start. Succulent and perfectly shucked, they are served with (in the end unnecessary) mignonette and cocktail sauces. Amy, ever the meat lover, recalls the spot on t.v. and craves the "Neptunes on Piggyback" - described on the menu as "crispy oysters, Berkshire pig, golden raisin confiture, pistachio aioli" - a layered concoction that seems like it shouldn't work. But it sooooo does. The flavors are as layered as the dish, the textures balanced, and even though there are only two, Amy offers one to Chris and immediately wishes she hadn't.

For the main event, Amy wants lobster, and the hot buttered lobster roll with fries calls her name. The second-largest lobster roll she's ever seen (the first being a gluttonous 3-footer in Maine) arrives, accompanied by freshly cut, crispy, salty French fries. Chris chooses the "North End Cioppino," New England's answer to the San Francisco classic - a spicy fish stew made with grilled fish, huge shrimp, and plenty of clams and mussels, served over saffron rice. Chris asks for bread, server smiles and says, "Let me toast some up for you," and returns within minutes. We dig in and stop talking until we're done because everything is that good.

Once done, we pay and thank and return to join the throngs of people lining the sidewalks of the North End. Although we are satiated (read: stuffed), being who we are, food is not far from our minds. Next door (or maybe two doors down), we spot Lulu's Sweet Shoppe. Amy cries, "Cupcakes!!! Yay!!!" We each buy one; Amy's goes in a little box for later, Chris eats his right away (offering a little taste that Amy can't resist). Yummy stuff. We pass Modern Pastry. Since it's Holy Thursday, the line is half a block past the door. Good thing we got cupcakes because cannoli seem out of the question for now. Next stop? Salumeria Italiana, another tiny location crammed with locals stocking up for the holiday. But this time we'll wait, patiently. The speck, guanciale, 24-month aged prosciutto and amazing citrus oils are worth it.

Now we're stocked up as well, so we take the long way, walking through the neighborhood back to our car. The sun is shining, our bellies are full and we have treats for later.

Life is good.