During my adolescence I spent some summers in Sardinia with my paternal aunt and uncle. I had a great time on my uncle’s motorboat bathing in the wonderful sea of the Emerald Coast and spending the afternoons watching the rich yachts go by, but above all I enjoyed eating the local delicacies prepared by my uncle.
The mussels au gratin made by Uncle Sandro was one such succulent dish.
Gratin mussels
- Preparation time: 40 minutes
- Ingredients for 4-6 servings
- Difficulty: Easy recipe
- Ingredients
- 60 mussels
- 1 clove of garlic
- 120 gr or 4 oz of stale bread
- Chopped parsley to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Instructions
- Chop the garlic and parsley.
- Prepare the mussels by removing the beards and scraping the shells well. Rinse well in plenty of cold water.
- In a pan with a ladle of boiling water, put the mussels to cook over high heat, covered with a lid, for two to three minutes.
- As soon as they are open, remove them from the heat and place them in a steel bowl. Now, cover them with cellophane so as to leave them nice and moist, placing the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice water and ice cubes. In this way, the mussels will cool down quickly without drying out.
Open the mussels by removing the part of the shell that does not contain the mussel and place them on an oven dish. - Meanwhile, chop the stale bread with the mixer, then add the parsley and garlic, a tablespoon of oil and the cooking water of the filtered mussels until you get a fairly creamy mixture.
- Take a little teaspoonful of this bread mixture and stuff the mussels.
- Bake in a hot oven at 400°F until golden brown.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- Mussel preparation is important. Covering the mussels with cellophane once they are cooked is used to prevent them from losing moisture and to keep them nice and not faded.
- It is always a good idea to remove the core from the garlic before making the beat to make it more digestible.
with uncle Sandro and Aunty Silvana in Sardinia
