# Dutch mussels



## Susi (Aug 4, 2005)

Hi, I spend a lot of my time in the Netherlands on the coast, and have got a receipe from good friends on how to cook mussels.

Hope you will enjoy it, we do at least

Per person you usually need about 1lb of mussels depending on how much you eat and how large they are and what you eat them with or how many stay closed.

so for one person you need:

1lb of mussels in the shell
1/2 of wine dry wine
1 small carrot 
1/4 leek
1 celery stick
1 tablespoon of parsley
pepper to taste

please use a large pan with a good fitting lid. The mussels must only go up half way in the pan.  You will need to shake the pan up and down so they will need room.

Put the mussels in cold water about 15 mins moving them around to get rid of the sand if there is any.

In the meantime, cut the veg into small pieces all the same size.
Put the pan on the stove, add the wine,half of the mussels, half of the raw veg, then the rest of the mussels and the rest of the veg on the top.  Add pepper to taste if you wish, no salt is needed.
Now here comes the big secret.
Bring the wine to boil (you will see that the wine will blow bubbles and gets foamy and it takes a while to boil). 
Now remove from the stove and shake the pan with the tight fit lid (better hold it as well) up and down 5 or 6 times.
Place back onto the stove and do this another two times.  And believe me, the mussels are cooked.  Only please eat the open ones and I usually serve it with brown bread, in Holland they serve them with french fries.

Its a great fun and a nice meal, and you can leave them in the pan when you serve them.  In Holland they have special mussel pans to make them in.

Enjoy them

Susi


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