I made Susan a special treat for her birthday: mussels in a creamy, garlic sauce. This is another one of those dishes that looks a heck of a lot more complicated than it truly is. The hardest, most time consuming part is de-bearding and cleaning the mussels and even that is not totally daunting. I won’t go into the process here but this site gives a pretty good tutorial on cleaning mussels.

Here is what I did to cook the mussels.

Ingredients

¼ cup butter
2 shallots, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 ½ cup white wine
½ cup cream
3 lb fresh black mussels, cleaned
fresh parsley, for garnish

Directions

Melt butter over medium in a large sauce pan with a lid. Saute shallots and garlic in butter for about 3 minutes or until soft. Add wine and cream and bring to a boil. Boil to reduce liquid until thick, approximately 10 min. Taste sauce and season with salt and pepper as needed.

With sauce boiling add mussels, cover and cook 5 additional minutes. Once mussels are fully cooked and open divide among bowls and ladle cream sauce over. Sprinkle with parsley.

Tonight I served the mussels with pasta and crusty bread along with a nice Sauvignon Blanc.

Happy birthday Susan!