While shopping at Fairway and walking by the seafood section, my eyes suddenly locked onto a bag of mussels bounded by a thin purple net. I frequently enjoy mussels as an appetizer when I go out to eat, but I never actually tried making them myself. For some reason I'm always hesitant when it comes to cooking seafood because it always seems more complicated than other categories. I walked away from them to go after other items in the store, but I couldn't shake the prospect of cooking mussels off my mind, so I went back and bought them.
Mussels that are purchased in a store or supermarket were likely raised on a "seafood farm" and already cleaned, but of course it's best to wash them off in a bowl and let them soak for about fifteen minutes before cooking. Any that are broken or already fully open should be thrown away promptly. Typically mussels are cooked in a wine sauce, usually white wine. For some reason I thought I had a bottle of white, or at least red, under my sink as an old gift someone had given to me that I never opened. The options I was left with instead was a spray bottle of Windex cleaning fluid and a bottle of Rhum Barbancourt, which is a rum brewed in Haiti. I didn't feel like walking to the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine, so the rum was going to have to do. I like pasta with my mussels, so I also planned to make some fresh (of course) linguine in tomato sauce on the side with it. In addition to the mussels, rum, linguine, and tomato sauce/paste, I what is needed is olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a bouillon salt, black pepper, herbs, and garlic powder.
Since the pasta takes the longest to cook, I boiled up some water and sprinkled in some salt to get that started. Mussels take the fastest to cook, so I just left them soaking in a bowl of water as I focused on the gravy. I went with three cans of sauce, one of paste, poured in a little olive oil and vinegar, sprinkled in garlic powder, black pepper, salt, and herbs, then crushed a bouillon cube and dropped it in. I put some fire under the sauce and stirred it up. By this time my water was boiling, so I poured in a little bit of olive oil and dropped in two handfuls of the fresh linguine. With the pasta and sauce well on their way, it was time to work on the mussels. They could be steamed, grilled, broiled, and I really wasn't sure yet what method I was going to use. I looked in various kitchen cabinets and luckily discovered I actually had a steamer pot, which I don't recall ever having before and don't have a clue where it came from.
Whether using rum, Windex, or the more traditional white wine as a sauce, its important to not use too much of it, otherwise it dominates the flavor of the mussels and defeats the whole purpose. When mussels open up from being cooked, they actually emit their own juice which give them their unique taste. Pouring too much of the sauce into the pot will dilute these natural flavors from the mussels when they open. Use about a cup and a half into the pot before dumping in the mussels, then when the mussels are in, pour the remaining half cup amount on top of the pile. So really in total its about two cups worth of sauce only being used. Also at the bottom of the pot I put in some olive oil, black pepper, herbs, salt, and garlic powder to flavor it up more. Once those were settled in, I put the cover on the pot and had all three parts cooking in tandem. As mentioned before, mussels cook very fast and after only five minutes I peeked in and noticed most of them were already opening. I used a big spoon to mix them up a little so they could all get an equal splash of the sauce flavoring at the bottom of the pot. Then after another four minutes they were all done and I turned off it's fire.
The pasta and the sauce soon followed suit and I was just about ready to sit down to this rum-experimented meal. The great thing about cooking mussels in a pot is that it is also typically used to serve the food in as well, so that's less plates to worry about cleaning later. All that is needed is a bowl to dump the empty shells in. After straining the pasta and placing it on a plate, I poured some sauce on top, and since I had plenty of sauce leftover, I poured the rest on top of the mussels to add more flavor and provide a nice decor. Its recommended to have a nice soft loaf of Italian bread to dip into the mussels' sauce, but since I didn't feel like going out before, I had to utilize slices of wheat bread for that. The mussels certainly had a kick to them due to the rum, and it was almost like taking mini-shots, especially after eating the ones at the bottom which had been soaking in the rum sauce the longest. All in all I must say it turned out better than I imagined it would be and found a new taste with mussels I never had before.
With all the rum, I felt very sleepy and had to take a nap after eating....
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