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| Mussels and Chorizo with Pasta |
There have been so many firsts as I've cooked along with French Friday with Dorie...now I can add cooking mussels and Spanish chozio! I'll admit I was nervous about the mussels. Filter feeders seem kind of iffy to me and I live in Oklahoma. How fresh can they really be? How fresh do they need to be?
Thank you Google! Need to know how to buy mussels? Google. How to clean, cook, or debeard? Google! What is debeard? You got it, Google! Betwen Dorie and Google I managed just fine.
The recipe calls for 4 pounds of mussels but I used 2 and I'm glad I did. 2 pounds were plenty if you serve over pasta. And speaking of pasta. We've cut way back on the amount of pasta we eat but this is the one we LOVE. I've searched for a whole wheat pasta but haven't found one that really works for us. When I make my own I use 1/2 semolina and 1/2 whole wheat. There isn't always time to make home made though and this was one of those times! Artichoke flour is substituted for part of the wheat flour and it just plain tastes good!
Our French Friday feast was shared with a friend and it was pronounced a success by all...including me. And one more thing. Dorie says have lots of crusty bread on hand if you are not serving this over pasta but I would say have bread on hand even if you are serving it with pasta! The juices are fantastic and you will want to soak up every last bit of them with a baguette!
Check out the
French Friday site to see what the other cooks thought of this dish.
What a great meal to share with a friend. And I love all the "firsts" we've had over the past year and a half...some of the little tips have turned out to be some of the best. Your mussels dish looks wonderful.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all - artichoke flour. I have never heard of it - I am intrigued.
ReplyDelete2nd - I don't know what we EVER did without Google.
This was definitely one of the most flavorful FFwD dishes to date. I am looking forward to making it again (with something other than mussels...)
Living in the Pacific NW and mussels coming from just a ferry ride away, I sometimes forget that wonderful seafood isn't always readily available to everyone ... especially you land-locked Oklahomans! I'm glad you "googled" your way through and enjoyed this meal, though. :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on another successful first. I too have had quite a few firsts with Dorie and it is always exciting. As for whole wheat pasta, we love it too and usually buy Barilla's brand (I think it's called Integrali or something similar). I've never seen your brand in my neck of the woods, but it sounds great, I'll keep an eye out.
ReplyDeleteThe bread was certainly required to sop up all that flavorful sauce don't you think? I love this! I would have used pasta to work up the leftovers but we didn't have any!
ReplyDeleteLove it! :) At least you managed to find some delicious mussels! :)
ReplyDeleteAlice @ http://acookingmizer.wordpress
I need to try that pasta... I've bought other DeBoles "flavors" but not the Jerusalem Artichoke. Where would we be without search engines and instructional videos these days? ;)
ReplyDeleteYour dish turned out perfect! It looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteThis was a first for me too! Your dinner looks wonderfully delicious! What did we ever do without Google? I am lost without the instant information! Love your photos! Happy Friday!
ReplyDeleteI agree about the bread. We served it over pasta, but we all had a healthy helping of baguette! I've never heard of artichoke flour before, and I'm also intrigued!
ReplyDeleteArtichoke flour? Another item to Amazon. I think google is amazing, and wonder how we lived without it and smart phones. These look terrific! Glad you enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteYour dinner looks gorgeous! Thanks for the tip about 1/2ing the amount of mussels if using pasta... I'll and make certain to have bread!
ReplyDeleteI am going to have to find the DeBoles, the addition of artichoke flour sounds really good! I bet it worked wonderfully with the flavors of this dish!
ReplyDeleteLoved the juices on this. You're right that you don't want to miss a single drop. I'm glad you were able to find fresh mussels in the middle of the country :) They are just so good. Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteI did a little Googling myself this week. Loved this recipe and now that I know how easy it is to prepare mussels at home, we're going to be having them more often. Yours look great - glad you could find some good ones.
ReplyDeleteI also found out that two pounds of mussels was more than enough for this recipe. I am glad you also enjoyed this recipe. I have not seen that pasta here, but I will look for it. My husband got me a pasta machine recently and I am looking forward to making my own. I have always heard that once you have homemade you will never want to eat boxed pasta again. I have not heard of artichoke flour! There are so many different flours out there I bet it will be fun to experiment with them.
ReplyDeleteI, too, halved this recipe and substituted the shrimp for the mussels. I think this is a great recipe and I really enjoyed the
ReplyDeleteaddition of chorizo, which I have never tried before. I served it over pasta, but I like the idea of the crusty bread too.
Thank you for the pasta recommendation. Sometimes I try buying whole wheat pasta but my husband always refuses to eat it. I'm going to give this one a try...Glad you enjoyed the recipe! I had to use google to figure out how to debeard mussels too.
ReplyDeleteYes, this was a winner for sure! I only made a pound and it fed me for two nights :)
ReplyDeleteI am surprised so many of us (and, our families) love mussels and loved this recipe. It was a fun week to cook.
ReplyDeleteWhat a delicious looking pasta dish and gorgeous plating too!
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