Viewed 11k times. Improve this question. Andrew Heckford Andrew Heckford 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 3 3 bronze badges. I was under the impression that, as long as open mussels close when you tap on them , they're perfectly fine to cook and eat, so you likely threw away many perfectly fine mussels.
If they're dead, they won't close again, and should be discarded. Regardless, you seem to have followed all of the steps Research where the mussels originate from, there are disctinct sources, spanish mussels and fremch mussels, atlantic and mediterranean, they have different farming conditions and different reputations.
Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Bart Bart 2 2 silver badges 5 5 bronze badges. Great answer, just to add, here's a great Serious Eats article that touches on these same points as a source, including information on soaking wild-caught mussels.
I've heard that they will eat flour and help clean themselves: cookstr. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Once you've zeroed-in on the rope-grown, farm-raised mussels at the store, you want to make sure they're fresh. Good mussels should look wet and smell like the ocean, salty and clean. If they smell a little funky, or many of them appear to be open already, then you're going to want to take a hard pass.
When you get them home, you can leave them in the fridge for up to 48 hours before cooking them. Speaking of cooking them , how's about you try steaming them in a spicy, tomato-y broth? Maybe with some mayo toast? This can take minutes, and it's important not to overcook them. I start checking them at 3 minutes and check every 30 seconds after that. Once the mussels open, remove them to a bowl leaving the liquid in a pan.
Carefully pour the liquid over them, leaving the grit if any in the pan. I know what some of you are thinking. That's all good as long as there is no grit in your mussels. Otherwise those lovely tomatoes will be gritty and there is no way to take the grit out at that point without removing all those delicious aromatics that you probably wanted to eat. A more labor intensive approach, but a safer one is to cook all your aromatics in another skills.
When your mussels are ready, pour their liquid over the aromatics being careful to let any grit stay on the bottom of the pan where the mussels cooked. Boil the aromatics with the mussel liquid for 30 seconds or so and pour over your mussels. You can flavor mussels with almost anything. Here are some ideas: shallots, white wine, garlic, parsley save to sprinkle in the end shallots, garlic, chilies, coconut milk, lime juice, cilantro save to sprinkle in the end shallots, garlic, tomatoes, basil save to sprinkle in the end I am sure you can find recipes galore on-line and now that you know how to avoid grit, there is nothing to stop you from trying all those cool ideas.
One thing I love to do is to swirl a piece of butter into the mussel liquid before pouring over the mussels. Oh, and go easy on salt. Mussel liquid is naturally salty, so taste before adding more.
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