Mussel, Wine and Tomato Pasta

We bought these nice (and cheap) mussels at the farmer's market yesterday. We had wine on hand but figured it would be better with something a bit more than just a typical wine and herb sauce. So out came the ingredients. And this time it wasn't me who was experimenting. It was my girlfriend.

She started out by frying up some mushrooms, onions, a shallot and some garlic in a frying pan and then dropping a got glass of local white wine and French vermouth. In another pot (don't ask me why she didn't just use one pot) she put in some organic chicken stock (not the bland Campbell's crap), a can of organic crushed tomatoes and the wine soaked aliums and mushrooms. I then advised her to reduce it by at least half and then add some oregano and thyme that we'd picked up at the market. That and cleaning up was my contribution.

She then cooked up some long macaroni while I cleaned and bearded the mussels. We just dropped the mussels in the now sputtering sauce and stired them once in awhile till they opened up and added even more flavour to the sauce.

Everything turned out to be delicious. With a bit of grated parmesan cheese, this simple plate would put to shame any chain Italian restaurant any day. At least our sauce didn't come out of a plastic bag. Plus we got to work together in the kitchen. Which is not alway the case when I'm in charge. I have a "my kitchen, my rules" sort of attitude that's somewhat out of character. I get real posessive about my kitchen sometimes.

More Seafood Chowder

All right. So I've been to parties where everyone brings their own meat and you just barbecue. But only in the Maritimes could you go to a party where everyone pitches in to buy over 10 pounds of mussels. But these weren't going to be just boring old steamed mussels if I had anything to say about it. It wasn't hard to convince our fellow party goers to let us make the sauce for the mussels.

The sauce we picked was from a recipe for Moules Mernier. All it consisted of was a whole bottle of white wine, the same amount of water, chopped parsley, and about 8 cups of finely shredded onions and shallots. Heated through and then cooked for about 20 minutes, we then strained the sauce and were left with a delicious broth ready for buckets of mussels and a quart full of cream.

After the party, once everyone had forgotten about the food and moved on to other things, I packed up a pot full of leftover mussels and some of the broth. Once we got home, we simply added a few packages of mixed seafood - once again an advantage only available to coastal residents - diced potatoes, carrots, celery and some chopped parsley. The ensuing soup was good but not great. We'd forgotten to take into account that the broth had reduced at the party and therefore it had become way too salty. Oh well, at least now I know that those Belgians really had the right idea. Beer and mussels...mmmm!