Looking for something specific? Search our recipe archives.
Excerpt from ‘Out of the Frying Pan’
In days gone by the white mussel was only used as bait but actually they’re every bit as tasty as their black counterparts and even compare very favourably with the much vaunted oyster. Just don’t overcook them!
You usually find white mussels on the outgoing tide of beaches with medium wave action. Start at the water’s edge and grind you heels in to about 10cm under the sand. When you feel something hard bend down and grab it and measure it immediately. If it’s 5cm or more in diameter, great, otherwise put it back gently from whence it came and pick on something bigger. You’ll find these little guys are quite co-operative, they’re very sociable so when you find one, others are usually close by.
You need a license and can take out 50 per person per day but really 10 or so per person is ample.
To prepare the mussels
You’ll need:
1 large potjie pot and a large glass of good dry white wine
Make a fire under the pot. Pour the water out of the bucket and toss your precious catch into the pot, enough to fill half the pot. Pour over the wine and drink the rest of the bottle once you’ve cooked the mussels. Check in a couple of minutes, if there are any mussels that shells haven’t opened turf them and remove the rest from the heat immediately. The thing about these little morsels is that they easily get rubbery if overcooked, so keep a hawk-like eye on the prize and the rest of the meal will be plain sailing. Remove about ⅔ of them from their shells and leave the rest as is. Some people like to eat them just like that and it looks good.
Thereafter it’s simply a matter of flavouring some melted butter and providing a loaf of crispy bread.
For the butters
You’ll need
3 smaller potjie pots
500g butter
2 lemons
A couple chopped cloves of garlic
A pepper grinder
A small handful of chillies
Heat the 3 smaller pots over the warm coals. Divide the butter roughly in three and whack some into each pot to melt. Now add the lemon and pepper to one, chilli to the next and garlic to the third pot.
Quite simply, all of these ingredients work amazing well either on their own with melted butter or when combined. So squeeze some lemon juice, crack ample amounts of black pepper and add various quantities of garlic and chilli to one or more of the pots – give people some options as to how much “heat” they choose to get.
Serve with on/with a sturdy bread like ciabatta or seed – delicious!
No response yet.
By Alexis Burg To take an idea and transform it into an organised and measurable commodity is a difficult pursuit, to say the least. When that idea depends entirely on a wild, real life adventure, you might go as far as to call it a madman’s gamble. Truth is stranger than fiction, and real life [...]
Read More >
Print 
