mussels in white wine sauce

aug 20, 2022 (sat).............replicate a dish from you tube video and cook this not easy to fail seafood dish

benchmark video (you tuber bob's your uncle) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Et6EGvZ_Y&t=316s 

introduction

- hong kongers love eating seafood and lots of seafood variety is available there

- there is a belgium restaurant (frites) famous for mussels in hong kong............choices of cooking in white wine, beer, laksa etc

- i personally prefer white wine

main ingredients

- mussel (this pack ~1kg)

- white wine (2 cups)

- smoked bacon/ speck

- shallot

- garlic (4 cloves)

- fennel

- butter

- parsley

steps

1. ready a bowl of water, add salt and some metal utensils (claimed quicker for the mussel to spit out the dirt inside)

2. brush every mussel...........drop those which are opened (ie dead)...............see the dirt from mussels

3. put the cleaned mussels into a bowl of salt water.............soak for few hours

4. slice garlic, dice shallot, slice fennel, chop parsley

5. wash the mussels once again and drain them

6. fry garlic and shallot until fragrant

7. add smoked bacon and fry for ~2 mins

8. add fennel and fry for ~1 min

9. add 2 cups white wine and cook for ~1 min...........then add ~20g butter

10. add in mussel and cover with lid.............let it cook for ~5 mins

11. take out those closed mussel (ie dead) and mix the whole thing a bit

12. add in chopped parsley

13. done

taste
-in general mussels are fatty and fresh (only 6 of this batch need to throw away)............most of them are just cook right, tender, juicy, sweet and flavorful

-but unfortunately guess it is the smoked bacon which are strong in msg..............i have a little msg allergic reaction after finishing 1kg of mussels myself...........lol

-probably goes well with spaghetti (make use of the remaining white wine sauce)..............but this time i pair with japanese style potato salad

-i use the remaining white wine sauce and cook the remaining rice vermicelli from making previous dish

areas of improvement
-source another smoked bacon with less msg