Cuisine:Global

Category:Appetisers

Prep Time:10 minutes

Serves:6

As well as steaming, mussels can be baked, grilled, pan-fried or deep-fried. As long as they are cooked, they can also be added to salads, pasta dishes, stir fries, sauces, soups or stews.

• 12-18 mussels
• 200 ml white wine
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 62.5 ml butter
• 25 ml finely chopped parsley
• pinch salt
• 25 ml Parmesan cheese

Clean mussels and place in a saucepan with white wine. Add water to cover and steam until shells open, about 5 minutes. Remove empty half-shells and discard any mussels that have not opened. Place remaining (in half-shells) in fireproof ramekins. Strain cooking liquor and set aside. Work garlic into butter with parsley and salt, and spread a little on each mussel. Sprinkle each with a little cooking liquor and Parmesan cheese. Grill until butter has melted and browned slightly. Serve at once.

1. Mussels need only a few minutes cooking, so therefore when adding them to other recipes, they should be added at the last moment, in order to prevent over-cooking. Over cooked mussels are quite tasteless, rubbery and a bit of a let down.
2. When buying fresh mussels, be sure they are live, with a tightly closed shell, though they will gape when exposed to warmer temperatures; their shells should close at least partially right away when you tap or jostle them.