A mix of Asian flavors and a little heat: Spicy Mussels with Ginger

Mussels get a pan-Asian treatment—and a bit of heat—with ginger, garlic, star anise, Serrano peppers, soy sauce and sake. Recipe below.

[su_dropcap style=”flat”]E[/su_dropcap]very time we cook mussels, I’m struck by a few things. First, how absolutely versatile they are. Much like boneless, skinless chicken breasts, mussels are a blank canvas—they deliciously take on the flavors and personality of whatever you cook them in. That could be luxuriously creamy and French, perhaps. Or in this case, pan-Asian based, with a decent peppery kick.

Second, mussels are easy to cook. Get some aromatics going in a pan, add some liquid, add the mussels. In four to five minutes, they’re done. The most tedious part is cleaning the mussels, and even that’s not bad. You scrub them quickly under cold running water and pull or snip off any “beards”—and with the farmed mussels you’re likely to encounter, cleaning will be minimal. Discard any mussels with cracked shells or open ones that don’t close when you rap them on the shell. I usually end up discarding seven or eight or so.

Third, mussels are quite economical. A two-pound bag—enough to feed two as a main course, four to five as a starter—clocks in around five bucks.

Fourth, and this is huge, they are sustainable. As more seafood inevitably becomes farmed (as wild caught is increasingly overfished and threatened), mussels are farmed stars. I explained it in an earlier mussels post (this is the sixth time we’re featuring them here) thus: The problem with most farmed fish—especially salmon—is that at least part their diet is other fish. Specifically wild fish. Filter feeders—such as mussels and oysters—strain their food from the water, naturally occurring microscopic phytoplankton. Not only do they not feed on wild fish, they actually help clean the water.

I’d like to pretend all these thoughts went through my head when we were hungry shopping last weekend and I came upon beautiful bags of Prince Edward Island mussels in their shiny blue-black shells, nestled in mounds of chopped ice. Instead, the thought process was more like, “Oh, hey. Mussels!” Wanting to do something different from the five other mussels recipes we’ve shared here, I landed on this Asian-inspired direction—garlicky, gingery and nicely spicy, thanks to Serrano peppers (you can regulate the heat without giving up the peppery taste—see the Kitchen Notes).

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Spicy Mussels with Ginger

Quick note: Do not clean the mussels or even take them out of the fridge until you've prepped everything else. They are living creatures—treat them gently and with respect. Mussels get a pan-Asian treatment—and a bit of heat.

Course seafood

Cuisine Asian-inspired

Servings 2 as a main course, 4 to 5 as a starter

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola or other neutral-tasting oil
• 2 Serrano peppers, seeded (or not) and chopped (see Kitchen Notes)
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 cup sake or shaoxing cooking wine, or dry white wine or dry vermouth
• 2 whole star anise
• 2 pounds mussels,scrubbed
• a baguette for sopping up the delicious cooking liquid

Instructions

• Heat the oil in a large, lidded skillet or sauté pan over medium flame. Add the peppers and sauté, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, 2 minutes or so. Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring frequently, for about 1 minute. Add the soy sauce, sake and star anise and stir to combine.
• When the liquid begins to bubble, add the mussels. Cover with a lid and cook until mussels open, about 4 to 5 minutes. They are now cooked.
• Using a slotted spoon, transfer mussels to a bowl to stop cooking (otherwise, they will become tough). Divide among shallow bowls and spoon the pepper/ginger cooking liquid over them.
• Serve with pieces of baguette for sopping up the delicious, spicy liquid. (There will be lots of liquid, and it will be thin—the mussels release the liquid they're holding in their shells when you cook them. With some recipes, notably European ones, you'll reduce the liquid or thicken it with corn starch—no need to do this here.)

Kitchen Notes

Dial the heat up or down. When prepping the peppers, I removed the seeds and ribs from one pepper (that's where the heat is), but left them in the second pepper as I chopped it up. The result was nicely spicy for us. For some friends, I know it would have been too hot—for others, it would have barely registered. Let your own heat tolerance guide how much of the seed and ribs you remove or leave in. But in addition to heat, the peppers add a nice flavor note, so don't forgo them.