Ideally you are on a Hebridean island, eating mussels you have picked and cooked on driftwood. If this cannot be, the barbecue in the backyard will suffice very well.
P.S. This works just as well for large clams or razor clams.
Hopefully, everyone–in America, at least–had a great weekend with lots of outdoor grilling, cold beer and fireworks. My wife and I managed to hit the trifecta on the Fourth, our first time in a good many years.
The next evening, right before I headed to the market to pick the mussels, we had a pleasant surprise in the fact that our Texas Everbearing Fig Tree decided to finally gift us with scads of ripened fruit.
While we picked the figs off the tree, I kept thinking about an update over on Hank Shaw’s blog that mentioned wrapping ripe figs in prosciutto and then grilling them. I mentally added prosciutto to my shopping list.
Upon returning home, I sliced, wrapped, and scattered the little bites over a heating up grill before I began inspecting and cleaning my mussels
Now, I don’t know if it was the excitement from doing my first seafood recipe of the book, or hunger pushing me to quickly get food on the table so we could eat, but I totally forgot to take any pictures of the mussels in their raw form. This is a very simple recipe though, so good mussel pictures will be along shortly. I did make sure to discard any open mussels that refused to close, as they quickly become toxic after they die. No food poisoning for me, thank you.
Mr. Henderson asks us to make a simple dressing to toss with the mussels once they’ve cooked. Lemon juice, garlic, young thyme, olive oil and a bit of seasoning. A quick whisking and I ran outside to pull the fig-prosciutto bites off the grill.
They turned out beautifully if you don’t mind me saying so–salty, meaty, sweet little tidbits. Next time I’ll be trying the figs with blue cheese, but wrapping them in cured meat is no terrible thing, I promise.
Finally, the mussels! Mr. Henderson mentions that using a wooden fire is highly preferred, but unfortunately I only have a gas grill. I’ll be making this again at my parents at some point, as they do have a proper barbecue pit. The mussels were spread over the grates and I waited for them to open up.
I ran inside and quickly pulled the leaves off of a bunch of celery, and chopped two big handfuls of parsley. Back outside, as the mussels slowly opened up I pulled them off the grill, and then tossed them with the dressing, celery leaves and parsley.
Here’s the final dish with a bit of bread for sopping up the mussel liquor and dressing, and a nice cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc. The dressing and greens perfectly complimented the briny, slightly sweet flavor of the mussels. The celery leaves in particular reminded me of Bay Seasoning.
My wife and I ended up almost polishing off a total of four pounds of mussels that evening, they were so good. If you’re looking to start summer off with a simple yet delicious grill recipe, you’d be hard pressed to find a better one than this.
One down, one hundred and six to go.
