I've been ordering from Peapod alot lately. I've been having really good success with the quality of their produce, meat, and seafood. So when I saw they had a special on mussels I ordered some up and when looking for a healthy recipe to make with them. I decided on Mussel Chowder I found.
The first step in the recipe was to "scrub and de-beard" the mussels. I had no idea what de-beard means or how to do it so I did a quick search on YouTube and found the following video.
What really scared me was when she mentioned that submerging the mussels in fresh water would kill the mussels because I had them soaking in a bowl of cold water as I was watching the video! It was only for about 10 minutes though so everything worked out fine.
I had a hard time looking over the mussels and determining which ones were dead. I pulled out all the cracked ones but other were mostly closed, and just a little open, but when I banged them on the counter as she did in the video they didn't close. I just wasn't sure about them. But I ended up cooking them in some water and wine and they all opened up so everything was fine.
The next step was to pull out the meat from most of the mussels and then I started chopping vegetables. It wasn't too bad... just dicing up potatoes, garlic, carrots, leeks, and fennel.
The house smelled wonderful just from sauteing the leeks! Then it was a matter of cooking the other veggies, adding in the reserved broth and letting it sit for a while. At the end I added in the half-and-half and reserved mussels. There really wasn't that much liquid left, so it was definitely a chowder. But everyone loved it! We had it for a late Sunday afternoon lunch while the Masters was on.
Love is all around you...
- Rachel
Twitter: @RachelRubin
Connect with me on Facebook
Visit me on Google+
Network on LinkedIn
Watch me (or my pets) on YouTube
Eat with me on Yelp
The first step in the recipe was to "scrub and de-beard" the mussels. I had no idea what de-beard means or how to do it so I did a quick search on YouTube and found the following video.
What really scared me was when she mentioned that submerging the mussels in fresh water would kill the mussels because I had them soaking in a bowl of cold water as I was watching the video! It was only for about 10 minutes though so everything worked out fine.
I had a hard time looking over the mussels and determining which ones were dead. I pulled out all the cracked ones but other were mostly closed, and just a little open, but when I banged them on the counter as she did in the video they didn't close. I just wasn't sure about them. But I ended up cooking them in some water and wine and they all opened up so everything was fine.
The next step was to pull out the meat from most of the mussels and then I started chopping vegetables. It wasn't too bad... just dicing up potatoes, garlic, carrots, leeks, and fennel.
The house smelled wonderful just from sauteing the leeks! Then it was a matter of cooking the other veggies, adding in the reserved broth and letting it sit for a while. At the end I added in the half-and-half and reserved mussels. There really wasn't that much liquid left, so it was definitely a chowder. But everyone loved it! We had it for a late Sunday afternoon lunch while the Masters was on.
Love is all around you...
- Rachel
Twitter: @RachelRubin
Connect with me on Facebook
Visit me on Google+
Network on LinkedIn
Watch me (or my pets) on YouTube
Eat with me on Yelp
