16 Sep Steamed Mussels With Cider And Garlic recipe
Steamed Mussels With Cider And Garlic – The R is in the month again so mussel time! Although these days mussels seem to be available most of the year, the time to eat local mussels is when the R is in the month.
The times of nice big mussels have gone, unfortunately, but the taste of the small ones are delicious too. So how to prepare and dish them up. It is actually very easy and if you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen, you just can fry some onions, carrots, celery and leeks for a few minutes add the mussels and some wine and your meal will be ready when the shells have opened. This should be after approximately 8 minutes. Don’t forget to keep the lid on the pan as they have to be steamed.
There are much more ways to prepare mussels, you could go for a recipe with a kick and add chillies or a cheesy one, adding blue cheese and cream. For the recipe below I have used local cider and apples. It is a lovely recipe and if you have any leftovers, you can take the shells of the mussels and use the liquid and mussels for a basis of a soup or for a risotto.
Ingredients for 4
2 kg mussels
2 apples (Grany Smith)
2 shallots, cut up
2 stalks of celery
100 gr. smoked bacon or pancetta
200 ml crème fraîche
200 ml Aspal Grand Cru cider
2 spoons of roughly cut parsley and celery leaves
For the bread
1 ciabatta
200 gr. of butter
1 handful cut up parsley
2 teaspoons of garlic paste
For the wedges
6 medium-sized potatoes
olive oil
salt and pepper (rough or from the mill)
How to prepare it
Start with cutting the potatoes into wedges, put them in an oven dish and sprinkle them with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake them off in the oven until nice and brown.
Mix the ingredients for the bread recipes and make deep cuts to the top of the bread. Fill it with the butter mixture and wrap it with baking paper. Put the bread in the oven when you put the mussels into the pan so it should be ready together with the mussels.
Clean the mussels (take the beards off). Then fry the bacon for a few minutes until a little bit brown adds the other ingredients apart from the cider and cream and season it. Fry for 5 minutes then add the mussels, cream and cider. The mussels should be ready after 8 until 10 minutes. Shake them well before serving and serve them in deep bowls topping it up with the lovely sauce.
Enjoy!