Placing mussels in a bowl of cold water is a fast way to check if they have gone bad – if they float, it’s best to discard rather than risk eating them. Don’t leave the mussels in the fresh water for too long however, after only 15 minutes they will die.
It’s definitely possible to overcook mussels – if you want to avoid the meat going chewy, tough and losing flavour, stick closely to the guidelines in the recipe.
Determining how many mussels to serve per person is nearly impossible – the answer is really determined by how many you want to serve. As a rough rule of thumb, measuring 20 mussels per person provides a good starting point.
It is completely acceptable to remove the mussel from the soup with a spoon, grasp the shell in a hand, then dislodge the meat with a fork. After that the choice is yours: either eat it with a fork, or suck the mussel out from the shell with some of the tasty broth!
This mussel soup is adapted from the base components of moules frites, Belgium’s national dish, which originated in the 1700s when cheap and readily available mussels from the North Sea were combined with white vinegar, butter, shallots and the ever-important fries on the side.
Mussels have fairly large shells but relatively small edible contents, so keep that in mind when determining how many to use in your soup. There’s nothing worse than making the effort to prepare a delicious stock then realising at the end that you used too few of the tasty molluscs.
Mussels go well with a range of herbs – in this recipe we chose parsley and fennel, but try thyme, tarragon and dill for alternative takes that are equally satisfying. If you feel like a really luxurious version, saffron is also a wonderful compliment.
Removing the meat from the mussel shell can sometimes be a challenge: using your fingers to grasp the shell while a fork is adopted to dislodge the mussel itself is usually the easiest and most time efficient approach. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty in the name of good food.
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