Chef Jacques van Staden
Steamed Mussels
Let me Show you guys how to do the steamed mussels. You know a lot of people always asking how do you do steamed mussels. A lot of people think you just put it in a steamer, no. That’s not what you do. Do you boil it in water? Absolutely not. You will definitely destroy it. What were going to do, if you have a nice big pan like that, alright and get that hot for us alright. Now mussels like I explain it to you. This is PEI mussels, okay. they them prince Edward mussels, PEI for short, alright and these are farm raised mussels. You get this and then you also get the ones that you have the green lip mussels, very nice, large, plumply, a really good flavor. You don’t always get them fresh. Most of the time they come in frozen but whenever you can get them fresh, that is definitely something you want to do is get them fresh because they are absolutely wonderful, alright.
Let me go with the ingredients for the mussels that we have here. Lemon, I’ve got some more mussels here, thyme, garlic and definitely done forget your white wine. We’re going to do some white wine and I’m going to show you how to stir it up and actually you how easy it is to do it, alright. So a little bit of olive oil, your pan for the mussels, you can bring it up to a smoking point. Smoking point, you’ll see when its hot enough where you actually pour in the mussels and you start stirring it of. Now a lot of people is like, How can you sear? Well you don’t essentially stir it. What happens is like yeah you saute it but it’s a process of just getting the mussels going and some of the liquid when you do it, it’s going to reduce when we add the cream and the white wine. So well, it should be about hot enough right there, okay.
Now, be careful if you have a big gas flame perfectly what you want to do is take your pan away from the flame because usually with you know, you have water here because you’ve clean these mussels. And I don’t know if I mentioned it to you but usually it's sometimes the mussels here is the perfect example. Do you want to pull the beard. We call this a little beard that’s what you want to put it out. You don’t want to serve that with the mussels but these are mostly the, all of them are wrenched okay.
So again, mussels, take your pan away and on it what happen? Did you add any and because of the water, everything will catch us on fire. So it could happen right now, you probably see what I’m talking about. So throw the mussels in at the same point. I’m going to go ahead with the garlic and some of the shallots alright. Now if you had to do your plants and mussels, what you would do, you throw in your or your cleanse food leave that for two minutes then add your mussels. It goes to cleanse, take almost twice as much almost three times as much for to cook as well it does for mussels.
There you go, that’s the flame you’re looking for, alright. You’re going to stir that of, alright and then our white wine with the white wine same thing. Frankly, I always put the pan away. It’s just easy it so you don’t catch anything on fire but usually wine will gradually catch on fire . So as you got the mussels there, I’m going to add a little dab of butter and then we’re going to go for lemon juice, alright. Put a little bit of lemon juice on this. Now for this, I love to use black pepper. Be careful when season the mussels. Since mussels, any seafood you know obviously they live in the ocean but like I said any seafood has already a lot of sodium in them. A lot of the juices, so when you reduce it, it just might get real salty. Add that and then I’m going to add the cream and we’re just going to reduce everything into this real nice and this is actually, this is how simple it is. Now, a little bit thyme and this all, the thyme is a little optional. It just need as much better flavor you could have some to. Now you’re probably going to ask me, how come the cream on curdle when you add lemon juice or cream doesn’t really curdel when you add lemon juice unless you add more lemon juice with your half cream then it will curdle. And especially when you reduce cream with lemon juice, it definitely doesn’t curdle because you get it to a nice and thicker consistency. And but you will do with these mussels, very important is make sure you reduce the liquid until it starts coating the mussels. Not completely a tight coat because it will be a little too strong. The mussels you still will have some kind of juice in them. Alright but you want to reduce it, at least as the consistency is safe, reduce it by half.
That give you a better example of where you want with the mussels, alright and at the end, when you reduce that I just put some parsley or some chives that you can put in and that’s going to be it. That’s really the dish. You can see the consistency of the cream already starting to get a little bit thicker there, okay. And that’s what you’re looking for and this actually how you mix the mussels. Now, if you have to make a big batch, obviously the more cream you add the longer time it reduce. Usually what we do, we remove the mussels as soon as it open, set them aside okay. And just put a little plastic cover over it. So this way, it doesn’t over cook the mussels okay. But when you do, a little amounts like this, it reduce so fast, and you won’t really overcook the mussel. So what your going to do, you do use the amounts, throw them in get the juice take them out at your cream of garlic everything. Reduce that first and right at the last minute before its very you know the consistency is correct, that’s when you go ahead and you add your mussels back into that.
Alright, I’m going to take the thyme and the bay leaf out. So that’s what you’re looking for and again, saffron from pre mussels, very easy. Yo just add your saffron. So now you have like a cream saffron mussel okay which of course makes it on 10 times better. You impress your guests more I guess you know, so now this you just pour it in and that’s. That is how simple it is to make the mussels you know and when you smell it just absolutely the aroma is fantastic. Alright, so how easy was that?
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