Mussel feed recipe.

Recipe for a mussel feed by request, thanks to Lodgepole

Mussel feed:
Clean and steam mussels with a half inch of water in the bottom of the steaming pan. Cover and steam until the mussels on the top open. Remove meats, and remove the beard. If the mussels are large, throw out the tough white muscle parts.

Then eat as many as you can eat. Use hot butter and lemon juice for dipping sauce. My wife prefers fresh crushed garlic butter with her mussels. Breads, cheeses, and fruits go good with mussels. And a green salad with tomatoes and avocado works well. White, or red wine, or a good beer, also go good with mussels. If you are an alcoholic, or you can’t drink, you should switch to peanut butter sandwiches because a mussel feed just screams for a good bottle of wine to cut the butter sauce. Invite as many friends as you can. Good friends are the most important part of a Mussel feed. And there should be a least one friend to tell you how icky they look and how they would never eat anything that looks like that, it makes them that much tastier.

Pickled mussels:
Take all of the left-over meats clean them and put then in a bowl.
Make a pickling brine out of left over juice in the bottom of the boiling pot. Taste the juice and if it is too salty add some water until it is acceptable.

For each quart of meat: Leave meat in the bowl, the brine will be poured over it later. Take two cups of juice and add one cup of apple cider vinegar to it. Put it in a pot and start to bring it to a boil, as it is heating add one tablespoon of off-the-shelf pickling spices, like can be bought at any grocery store. Add three bay leaves. Add a half of a small lemon, give it a little squeeze and toss it in the boiling brine. Then add as much crushed red pepper as you feel brave enough to try, but put at least a little bit in because the final product doesn’t seem to be as spicy as you thought it was going to be.

Simmer the pickling brine for forty-five minutes then pour it over the mussel meats. Cover and place in the refrigerator. They will be ready to eat cold the next day. Makes a good hors-d-oevres. I don’t know how long they will last; they don’t last over a week at my house because they get eaten.

My grandmother would have a whole shelf of her pantry filled with picked mussels. She would take us kids to the ocean and we would pick a whole large gunny-sack full and we would bring them home and have a mussel feed, and then can the rest. The kids got stuck with cleaning them, but I didn’t mind. I’ve always loved pickled mussels.