[Sca-cooks] Seafood, was Re: Seljuk/Rumi/Sufi Cuisine

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 29, 2010, at 12:32 PM, Elaine Koogler wrote:

> PS:  any clues as to how to clean mussels?  I need to trial cook a recipe
> for a friend and it calls for mussels which I've never dealt with before.
> Would I be ok using the frozen variety that are already cleaned??

Place live mussels in cold water to cover with about 1/3 cup Kosher or sea salt per gallon of water, leave to sit and purge (basically whatever they've eaten recently) for about 1/2 - 1 hour.

Scrub with a stiff brush as needed, removing anything stuck to the shells that you expect would otherwise come off during cooking. Barnacles or something, no, mud and sand, yes.

Pull off black seaweed-ey-looking siphon threads, a.k.a. the beard. They extend inside the shell; remove just before cooking by slowly pulling until they tear off. Don't cut them and leave the roots inside the shell. Cook immediately after removing beard.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter