Good Fish_ Sustainable Seafood Recipes From the Pacific Coast - Becky Selengut [16]
SEASON: Meds are at their best from June through October, which surprises many people who think all shellfish should be avoided in the summer—not true! Mussels, like other bivalves, are best in the months before they spawn and at their worst during and just after spawning. If you’ve ever purchased a mussel that only took up a tiny fraction of its shell, that puny, dried-out, sad, lil’ thing probably just went through spawning. It’s tired, and you don’t want to eat it, trust me. The good news about M. trossulus is that this species is at its peak just when meds are petering out. The season for M. trossulus, aka Penn Cove mussels, is late fall through winter into early spring. If it helps you, you can think of meds being at their best in the heat of summer, just like the Mediterranean. Penn Coves are best in the cold months, just like a good hearty Northwesterner.
BUYING TIPS: Look for unbroken mussels that smell neutral or pleasant. If a mussel is open, close it; if it springs back open and doesn’t gently close itself, it is probably dead. Learn from my mistakes. I recently put my nose on some mussels that smelled just fine. I got them home, cooked them up, and it wasn’t until their shells opened that it hit me: the unmistakable smell of baby diapers. I had forgotten to check the harvest tag on the mussels and was shopping at a fish place I don’t normally frequent. When I went back and took a peek at the tag, I realized those mussels had been harvested eight days prior. There is a theory that mussels, unlike clams and oysters, can go off even though they are still alive when you cook them. Eight-day-old shellfish would have had to be handled perfectly, in ideal circumstances, to still taste fresh. Check the tags and use your judgment, but I’m comfortable with anything up to five days from har vest—if you trust the handling has been sound. When cooking mussels, you may notice that a few don’t open. You may have heard that eating these mussels will make you sick, but the truth is that they are either full of mud or just not cooked enough. Bivalves open when dead—it’s more important to discard any that gape open and won’t close before you cook them as these are the ones that could make you sick.
QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE YOU PULL OUT YOUR WALLET: Are these farmed or wild? (This will give you a sense of how dirty or gritty the mussels might be—farmed tend to be a lot cleaner.) Mussels, like clams, are an abundant coastal food, so ask if they are local. There is no need to fly in mussels from other places when we have them close to home. Ask what species they are so you can determine the quality (remember the different spawning times).
CARING FOR YOUR GOOD FISH: Get your mussels home, put them in a bowl, and place a damp—not soaking wet—towel on the mussels to keep them from drying out in the refrigerator. Use them quickly, within a day or two (keeping in mind their harvest date).
HOW THIS TYPE OF SEAFOOD IS RAISED OR HARVESTED: Mussels are either harvested in the wild by raking or dredging, or they are cultivated on ropes, mesh socks, or lines made from various materials, suspended most typically from rafts.
SUSTAINABLE SUBSTITUTES: Clams are an easy and widely available substitute for mussels.
mussels with guinness cream
2 pounds mussels
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive
oil
¼ cup minced shallots
Pinch of salt
⅛ teaspoon cayenne
¾ cup Guinness extra stout
¾ cup cream
1 teaspoon freshly grated or
prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons minced fresh
Italian parsley
Good, crusty bread
I try to eat fairly lightly, and that means I don’t reach for cream every time I cook. Cream is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a crutch masking the flavors of the food it is paired with rather than elevating