Fresh mussels – quick, easy and delicious
Pasta with wine and garlic mussels is a super quick and delicious dinner option. What is more, nothing can go wrong even if you are just a beginner fan of fresh mussels. I made the recipe the simplest it can be and with the 5 Element Cooking Method. If you feel you need more support you can get some more information on cooking mussels here.
Start with the pasta dough as it needs 30 minutes of resting when you can cook your mussels. Follow the link for detailed instructions on pasta dough.
The mussels – preparation
To serve 2 people use 500g of fresh mussels. Add them to a large bowl with water, add 2 heaped tablespoons of salt and leave them for about 15 mins. Shake them well. Discard the water and clean them with a brush.
The mussels sauce – procedure
Use a large cooking pan, put it on low heat and add the following:
- Sweet 3 tablespoons of olive oil,
- Pungent 1 dried hot chilli pepper, whole or 1 fresh one, roughly chopped, 4-5 roughly chopped garlic cloves, a pinch of freshly grated black pepper,
- Salty a tiny pinch of salt,
- Sour 1 cup (about 150ml) white wine, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1/2 bunch of parsley (save the other half to add at the end and a few leaves to garnish),
- Bitter a pinch of turmeric.
Stir all the ingredients well and simmer for about 2 minutes. Make sure the garlic and chilli do not get burned.
Turn the heat up to high and add your mussels. Cover the pan with a lid and shake it several times. You need to get the temperature high to make sure all the mussels open properly. Cook them for about 5 minutes stirring or shaking the pan from time to time.
Prepare a large frying pan. Place a colander in it and transfer the mussels to the colander. Let the liquid drip onto the frying pan and leave the mussels in for a few minutes in to cool down a little bit.
When they are cold enough to handle, get the mussel meat out and add to the liquid in the frying pan. Leave 4-6 mussels in shell halves to garnish.
To spare you washing up, rinse the pan in which you boiled your mussels and use it to cook your pasta.
To cook the pasta
Get the dough out of the cling film, cut it into 3 parts and roll out into circles. Fold the circles from the top and the bottom inside twice to get a stripe. Cut with a sharp knife.
Boil a large pan of 1/3 of water with a teaspoon of salt. Cook the pasta in batches for about 1 minute or when it floats to the top.
Transfer each batch onto the frying pan and add it directly to the mussel sauce.
Turn the heat on and bring the liquid with the mussels and the pasta to a gentle simmer.
Divide the pasta with sauce to two serving plates and garnish with some parsley leaves, mussels in shells and a drizzle of olive oil.
Serve your pasta with wine and garlic mussels immediately.
