This recipe is fresh and a real pleasure for those who love mussels.
I often buy mussels in July, the ideal month to buy them. I then cook them and freeze them to be able to prepare this dish in the following months.
Spaghetti with mussels and lemon
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Ingredients for 4 servings
- Difficulty: Easy recipe
- Ingredients
- 2 lb. 4 oz (1 kg) of mussels
- 12 oz (350 grams) of spaghetti
- 1 lemon
- 1 clove of garlic
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Fresh chili to taste
- Parsley to taste
- Instructions
- Finely chop the parsley.
- Prepare the mussels by removing the beards and scraping the shells. Rinse well in plenty of cold water.
In a pan with some water, cook the mussels on high heat for a few minutes until they are open.
Place them in a bowl covered with cellophane, then place this bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice water to cool the shellfish. When they are lukewarm, shell the mussels and keep them in the cooking water, filtered by a sieve. - Take 1/4 of the mussels and use an immersion blender to make a cream. If it is too lumpy, pass it in a sieve.
- Boil the water in a saucepan and toss the pasta.
- In a pan, stew the oil, garlic, and fresh chili pepper, then add the filtered liquid from the mussels and the mussel’s cream.
- Drain the spaghetti “al dente” and pour it into the pan. Add, if necessary, ladles of unsalted boiling water.
- At the end of cooking, when the pan is off the heat, add the shelled mussels, the chopped parsley, and a grated lemon peel.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- Covering the mussels with cellophane will prevent them from losing moisture. There is nothing sadder than a shrunken mussel. This procedure is useful because it allows you to cook them well in advance.
- The final creaming of the pasta in the pan is, in this case, fundamental to ensure that the oil and water are emulsified thanks to the starch contained in the pasta.
- To cook pasta ideally, consider 1 liter or 1 US quart of water for every serving.
