hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with lemon and jalapeno marinated
mussels that's right there are a few things better than a big beautiful bowl
of steaming mussels especially when paired with some crispy fries and maybe
a nice cold beer and yet as amazing as that is it's still only my second
favorite way to eat mussels which is why i'm so excited to show you this
preparation also known as my favorite way to eat mussels at least during the
hot weather months so with that let's go ahead get started and the first thing
we're gonna have to do is find a couple pounds of live black mussels and before
we use them they should definitely be scrubbed Andy bearded and then rinsed
and drained which is generally how they're sold these days but if not I'm
gonna give you some tips on the blog post on how to prep them and what we're
gonna do is steam those mussels open using a diced onion which I'm gonna add
to this pan with a little bit of olive oil and a nice big pinch of salt and
what we'll do is cook those stirring over medium-high heat till they just
start to sizzle ensure you could cook these further and get them sort of
golden brown where they start to get a little bit sweet but for this approach I
think we want something a little sharper in flavor so like I said I'm just gonna
cook these until they start sizzling and they look a little something like this
at which point I'm gonna grab my mussels and carefully transfer those into the
pan and by the way there's probably gonna be about a tablespoon or two of
water left in the bowl which is totally fine to add but we don't want any more
than that so make sure these are fairly well drained and then all we need to do
is cover this tightly and cook it for about two minutes or so or until the
mussels just open up and if that happens all once great a lot of some open before
others make sure you pull them out because these things go from plump and
perky to puny and pathetic in about 30 seconds so what I'm trying to say is
that as soon as these open we have to get them off the heat and quickly
transfer them into a bowl along with any and all accumulated juices and then once
we've successfully bowled our bivalves we're gonna let them sit for a few
minutes until they're cool enough to handle
at which point we're gonna carefully separate the mussel from the shell which
I usually do just using my fingers but some people do like to use the other
half of the shell to sort of scrape it out which does work and if you're having
trouble getting these out go ahead and try it I mean you guys are after all the
nipsey Russell of your marinated mussels and speaking of match game as you do
this be sure to the shells because once our mussels are
marinated we're gonna transfer those back to the shells matching big mussels
with big shells and small mussels with small shells or I guess the other way
around if you're a little loud but anyway we're gonna separate the mussels
and reserve the shells and once that's been accomplished we will transfer the
mussels to the fridge while we work on our dressing in the base of that's
actually going to be our reserved accumulated juices which will transfer
back into the pan and put the heat on a medium-high and what we want to do is
reduce this until most of the liquid evaporates and we basically have sort of
a glaze and by the way if you ever find yourself on a shellfish related trivia
game show the juices that come from mussels and clams and oysters is
referred to as a liqueur so don't miss that question oh and a little tip here
if you want this to burn just walk away for a minute that will definitely do it
because this is gonna reduce very fast so in fact you don't want to go anywhere
just watch the pan and watch it reduce until it reaches about this point and
once that happens we will transfer that into a clean Bowl and we will let that
cool down at which point we will continue on with the rest of the
dressing ingredients and first up we will add in a little bit of freshly
grated lemon zest all right now too much okay a little bit of lemon oil goes a
long way and that's exactly what we're activating by grating that zest and then
of course as the name would indicate we're also going to need some jalapeno
which I think for this should be very finely diced and then for our acidity
we'll squeeze in some fresh lemon juice as well as a couple splashes a champagne
vinegar and then we'll finish this by using classic vinaigrette technique
which means whisking in enough oil until we're happy with the balance between the
oil and our acidic ingredients and for me a very general rule of thumb I
usually go about three parts oil to one part vinegar but for something like this
it's really more of a sauce I usually go with something closer to two to one oil
to vinegar ratio and of course having said all that I don't measure I'll just
keep whisking it in and testing it until it tastes right and by the way that
muscle liquor is going to be naturally a little bit salty and since we started
this dressing with that reduction we should have enough salt but you
definitely still want to check and then once that's AB we'll go ahead and pull
out our mussels and we'll go ahead and spoon that dressing over
and yes I probably could have just poured this all on but I thought that
would have been a little too fast so I decided to go with this spoon to give me
a little more time to enjoy the application all right it's these little
meditations you get to do when you cook to make it even more enjoyable and
relaxing and then what we'll do once these two components have been combined
let's go ahead and press some plastic down on the top and that's it once wrap
we'll transfer that into the fridge for anywhere between two and eight hours and
I personally think anywhere between two and four hours is the sweet spot and of
course at some point during that marination time we will want to finish
cleaning and arrange in our half shells and of course we'll be picking the
biggest and the best and the most beautiful and then once we've decided
our mussels have marinated long enough we'll go ahead and pull those out and
give those a gentle but thoughtful mix with this spoon at which point we'll go
ahead and transfer a mussel into each shell sort of trying to match the sizes
I guess but don't pull a muscle it's not really that big of a deal own
if you happen to have a couple tiny muscles you could put two of those
together and fill one shell but fortunately since I didn't overcook mine
they were all a nice size and that's it once our shells are filled we'll go
ahead and spoon over as much dressing as we can possibly fit in and over doing
our best to evenly distribute that minced jalapeno and that's it we can
serve this immediately or pop it back in the fridge to chill it even more all
right I think the colder this has served the better but I'm gonna go ahead and
grab one now so I can remind myself why I love marinated mussels so much all
right I'll get to the taste in a minute but because a chilled mussel is so much
firmer and Meteor I really do enjoy the texture with this approach more than the
hot steamed ones and I could easily that whole plate as is but if you want and I
did we could fancy these up a little bit with a slice of Fresno chili and by the
way you get extra credit for serving these on shaved ice since like I said
the colder the better and by the way in the spirit of full disclosure that's not
actually shaved ice I just simulated that with some coarse salt like one of
your finer food stylist would have done and as much as I enjoy the texture of a
cold marinated mussel I think I enjoy the flavor even more all right we have a
little bit of a subtle sweetness coming through from the onions which is being
perfectly balanced by this bracing cold vinaigrette and I love all spicy food
but there's something about a chilled spicy dish
just seems so much more interesting so I really did thoroughly enjoy this like I
mentioned earlier there are very very few things I like better than a big bowl
of steaming mussels and yet this is one of them especially during the summer so
how why they're permitting I really do hope you give these a try soon head over
to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual
and as always enjoy
you