Good Eating: Mussels

Let me first get these off my chest: I LOVE FOOD and I LOVE EATING FOOD!

I love the flavours, the sensations, the textures; be they luscious, smooth, chewy, or yielding, and I even love the monster headaches some give me after (I have a yo-yoing diagnosis as a borderline hypertensive, mainly due to my reduced capacity to let things go, teehee!).

Thus I feel I should write about specific kinds of food that I love even though I may not necessarily be able to enjoy them as frequent as I would love to, due to you know- work commitments, time, budgetary limitations (constraints more like it), and yes, health reasons (this is a particular sticking point!)

Let me introduce you to one of my favourite things - Mussels! There are several subspecies to begin with i.e. but to commoners we know them as the large Green Shell Mussels which are often misleadingly called Green-lip, it is their shells that has the green colour, not the meat itself. New Zealand exports serious amounts of these everywhere in both fresh and cooked forms. Then there is the Blue Mussel (sometimes appearing black) of which their shells tends to be rounder and the much smaller Black Mussel, also locally found in our inter-tidal brackish water zones. I have had the pleasure of sampling them in several ways.

To start, the French classique: 

Moules Mariniere- Juicy plump mussels in butter, cream, lashings of garlic and a little astringency

 (in the form of either wine or a careful balance of good quality vinegar, sugar and salt). Pictured above is a thick creamy  version from a quaint restaurant in London called Cafe Rouge. London's  Chef Gary Rhodes' restaurant Rhodes W1 in the Cumberland Hotel offers a slightly soupier and the more richly perfumed version.

Moules Mariniere! Now, few things in life can compare to a plate piled high with mussels in smooth garlicky cream sauce. Especially if you have some crusty baguette lying around to sop up the gravy. It is always a challenge for me to go slow with this dish. I have to consciously control the urge to jam my maw with as much garlic-cream sopped bread and plump squishy mussels as I can and savour every little bit. This dish would be my idea of the penultimate posh comfort food.

I have also had mussels stir fried, done in a brilliant Chinese style that incorporated garlic and fermented black beans. This is off the wall good! Somehow the tang of sea is amplified by the saltiness of the black beans. And the modified proteins present due to the fermentation of the beans add such depth of richness and satiety. Some Malays love to use the word 'Lemak' to describe it, not your fatty kind of richness, more of a full bodied taste that envelops your palate repeatedly. The Japanese call it 'Umami' the so called fifth taste sensation picked by our tongues after sweet, sour, bitter and salty, that is not commonly found in non-fermented goods.

I love them topped with Cream and Cheese and put under a searing hot grill to bubbling perfection. Never mind the cheap versions I find are mostly using boiled frozen half shell mussels. But you know what they say, slap anything with cheese and give it a good whack of heat will turn even shoe leather into culinary bliss!

This is a variant with herbs,  fresh tomato marinara, cream and topped with loads of grated cheese

(one should mix several varieties for impact - aged Cheddar for oomph, Mozzarella for

the string factor and some Emmenthal or Gouda to round it off).

My mom used to make us a spicy Sambal Tumis Kupang (the Malay word for Mussel). Funny that as a child I didn't quite enjoy this treat as I didn't quite get the unique taste of the mussels. I only started paying mussels more respect after being properly taught to utilise them in Chef school and my industrial attachments (read practical training or what I swore was indentured servitude in far flung hotel kitchens!). Alas, Mak doesn't cook it at home anymore as my elder brother somehow developed an allergic reaction to them. Since then, I have been pining for it.

I steamboat place we frequent also offers mussels (yes, the dead boiled frozen on the half shell kind) to be dip-cooked  in your choice of chicken soup or spicy tom yam broth. In this case though, due to the fact that the mussels are dead on arrival, it is more for texture than anything else, although some flavour remains. Care has to be taken though so as not to dunk it in the soup for too long lest it transmogrifies into vulcanized rubber! By then, no amount of dipping sauce will help!

Did you know Mussels are sexually dimorphic? I was told that Boy mussels are the pale ones (as pictured above)

and the Girls are bigger, more plump and have this gorgeous coral/orange hue to them.

I know for a fact that girl mussels stain and perfume its cream gravy with a very mild roe scent, a gastronomic lesson experienced  in Gary Rhodes' W1 restaurant.

Some Chefs actually prefer girl mussels for this character it imparts on their dishes. Brilliant eh?

Visit any good buffets in town and chances are you will find the boiled versions on their buffet ice beds. Perfect with a drop of lemon and the tiniest lash of Tabasco and L&P sauce. I always end up piling my plate with a small mound of these every chance I get. These of course will invariably be partnered with shucked oysters and/or boiled shrimp. Unless the oysters are exceedingly fresh, I would attack the mussels first.

I also love them raw, but it is really really hard to find them in a superbly fresh (as in still alive and kicking), living in a city and all that. Mussels get toxic very quickly once they die and can cause a host of stomach ailments, explosive diarrhoea being the least inconvenient one.

Oh, and they also can accumulate a dangerous amount of 'Red Tide' microorganisms (dinoflagellates) that they are immune to but curiously badly affects our neurological system. So be careful when you do get mussels. I gotta get me some too.