Steamed Mussels
With rice wine & dill
Mussels are one of my favourite foods. They are cheap, sustainable, delicious and easy to prepare. In fact it takes longer to eat a plate of mussels than it does to cook them. The hardest part is perhaps making a trip down to the fishmonger to get hold of fresh mussels, but the sound of them clattering noisily in their net is usually enough to convince me. I tend to choose the simplest method of cooking them – tipping them straight into a pot with nothing more than a little splash of wine and a sprinkle of herbs. The mussels steam, releasing salty, savoury juices that combine with the wine and aromatics to create an incredible broth. Rice wine and ginger is a combination I often had when I was growing up; the dill is something I learned to add after having a homely platter of shellfish served with dill on the streets of Vietnam.
- 500g fresh mussels, in the shell
- a thumb-size piece of ginger
- 1 tablespoon groundnut oil
- 2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine
- a handful of fresh dill, chopped
- Clean the mussels by scrubbing them under cold running water to remove barnacles or sand, and remove any visible beard by giving it a sharp pull. Discard any open mussels that do not close when tapped on the shell.
- Slice the ginger into thin strips. Heat the oil in a large heavy-based pot or wok. Over a medium heat, fry the ginger until fragrant.
- Turn the heat up to medium high, tip in the mussels and pour in the rice wine. Cover with a lid and let cook for 4–5 minutes, until all the mussels have opened up. Discard any that don’t open.
- Stir in the chopped dill, then dish up the mussels, pouring the broth over. Serve with plenty of plain rice to soak up all the yummy juices.