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Seattle Souvenir

This appeared in today’s San Francisco Chronicle Food & Wine Newsletter. If you like mussels and LOVE bacon, you’ll join me in applauding the Seattle chef who created this quick and easy dish.

QUICK WEEKNIGHT DISHES

Seattle-Style Mussels
By Casey Ellis, Chronicle contributor
My husband and his relatives have always loved to schlep edible souvenirs home from trips. They tuck cheeses into carry-on bags, stuff sausages into briefcases and devote extensive duffel bag space to jars of olives and pickles.

Grandpa Koch once packed a large, frozen grouper in his suitcase. Supposedly the fish was well wrapped, but not well enough to survive a long flight delay at a warm Florida airport. And let’s not even discuss my spouse’s lost luggage with the fresh Italian truffles hidden among his socks. After three days, neither truffles nor socks were salvageable.

I find it far easier, when traveling, to collect recipes rather than raw ingredients.

I discovered the idea for the following mussels entree in a tiny restaurant on the second floor of Seattle’s Pike Place Market. In this case, I never got the actual recipe, just a tip from the waiter as to the ingredients. This is one of the quickest dinners in my repertoire. Now that most mussels arrive at the market clean and beardless, their preparation time is greatly reduced from former days of tedious scrubbing and scraping.

Although I’ve given exact measurements, you’ll find that a little less bacon or a little more celery or an extra glug of balsamic vinegar customizes the dish to your own taste.

Truth be told, I’d never reduce the bacon amount, but I’ll concede that doing so would lower the fat content. Grilled bread to dunk in the mussel broth is an absolutely non-negotiable accompaniment here — and I say this as a usually dedicated low-carber.

Seattle-Style Mussels
Grilled bread for dunking is a must here. I like a side dish with a hint of bitterness, such as steamed Chinese broccoli drizzled with olive oil.

INGREDIENTS:
6 ounces thick-sliced bacon (7-8 slices)
2 cups celery in 3/8-inch slices (5-6 stalks)
3 1/2 pounds mussels, rinsed
2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
3/4 cup dry white wine
5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

INSTRUCTIONS: Cut bacon into 3/8-inch-wide pieces. Saute bacon and celery in a skillet until bacon is cooked but not crisp. At this point, the celery should be crisp-tender. Drain off fat.

Pick over mussels, discarding any that are open and refuse to close when tapped lightly. Place mussels in a large, covered pot attractive enough to go to the table. Add celery and bacon, garlic slivers and wine. Cover and cook over medium-high heat until mussels open — usually 5 to 8 minutes. Toss mussels with a slotted spoon to distribute bacon and celery. Drizzle balsamic vinegar over mussels and toss again. Cover pot and take to the table immediately.

Remove the lid at the table so everyone can enjoy the marvelous aromas — then spoon mussels, vegetables and broth into large, shallow soup bowls.

Serves 4

PER SERVING: 280 calories, 25 g protein, 12 g carbohydrate, 11 g fat (3 g saturated), 59 mg cholesterol, 764 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

Tags: cooking mussels, Pike Place market

Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 2:58 pmand is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.