This recipe starts with a traditional tomato and white wine sauce. I love the delicate taste secreted from steamed mussels. As with other recipes, I prefer simple ingredients that don't distract from the main titled ingredient. My recipe also includes cubed tomatoes and parsley for a fresher taste instead of ground peeled tomato often in tomato juice, and basil. Although I don't think it's needed, you can add a little battuta of finely chopped celery and onion, sautéed in olive oil after cooked garlic is removed.
Pepper flakes can be adjusted to taste. Smaller amounts are for debt of flavor, more to crank up the heat.
Olive oil carries flavor. Sauces like Aglio Et Olio are oil and garlic based. I like my sautéed tomatoes glistening with olive oil especially in seafood sauces (i.e. red shrimp sauce). I recommend using 3/4 cups in this dish.
This recipe calls for 4 pounds of mussels and will serve 6 or more as a hardy first course. There is about 20 to 25 mussels per pound. I suggest you take into consideration the popularity of this selection when planning your main course. Every morsel of sauce, mussels and dipped bread will be consumed leaving little room for the main meal!
You can scrub vigorously scrub mussel's shells clean ahead but remove any beards closer to steaming. Also, don't submerge mussels in water for any length of time. Steam your mussels just prior to serving. Mussels should open after 5 or so minutes. After the vast majority have opened, discard any that don't.
As mussels open they release their wonderful tasty liquid into the souse. Serve immediately when very moist. If not, they are prone to drying. Dive into the sauce with plenty of crusty artisan bread. You can also ladle mussel soup onto large crostini served on the bottom of each plate.
I vividly remember hand picking mussels and periwinkles off the rocks, low tide at the shore lines of Massachusetts and Maine. I remember our families piling into uncle Jimmy's Packard station wagon with the youngest sitting on laps. Children watching us taking pails would inevitably ask, "you going to eat that stuff?". One more reason to love growing up Italian!
p.s. please see safety handling and cleaning instructions for mussels on any number of online websites.
Optional Crostini: