Quick, easy, affordable and delicious: Steamed Maine mussels have it all

Kirby Sholl, chef at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth, removes the beard from a fresh mussel. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Midwinter cooking usually brings to mind dishes like hearty stews and chilis, succulent meat roasts and braises, and starchy, rib-sticking casseroles. It's just what our bodies seem to crave this time of year.

But home cooks don't often think to make a big bowl of steamed mussels in rich, fragrant broth -- one of the best and most satisfying seafood dishes for cold weather -- though it's something many would gladly order at a restaurant.

"Eating a simple bowl of mussels, scooping the broth with the shell, is one of the great hands-on dining pleasures of eating Maine shellfish," said Kirby Sholl, chef de cuisine at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth. "There's just something so warming about it. It offers two pleasures: You're eating the delicious, plump mussels themselves, and you've got a sidecar right there of the equally delicious broth."

"It's the ultimate one-pot dish if you like Maine seafood, and it's super-easy," said Courtney Loreg, executive chef at Woodford Food & Beverage.

Mussels at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Sholl serves grilled sourdough with the mussels at The Good Table to help customers soak up every last drop of the savory steaming liquid at the bottom of the bowl, made from white wine, garlic, shallots, leeks, thyme, butter and, of course, the precious savory-sweet liquor the mussels release when they open.

"Any mechanism for sopping up the broth is absolutely necessary," Sholl said. "It's like a prize at the end of the bowl."

Convenient, affordable, quick-cooking, nutritious and delicious, steamed mussels tick just about all the boxes for a delightful weeknight dinner (or a special weekend treat, for that matter). We talked with area chefs, mussel farmers and seafood purveyors to glean their tips for making the most of mussels at home. It all starts with the raw product, and fortunately for us, Maine has no shortage of high-quality farmed mussels.

A SUSTAINABLE PROTEIN SOURCE

"There are a lot of really responsible mussel farms throughout Maine," Sholl said. "It doesn't really get more environmentally friendly than Maine-grown mussels."

"They're incredibly sustainable to the environment," agreed Matt Moretti, co-owner and CEO of Bangs Island Mussels. "It takes very few resources to grow them, no feed, no fertilizer, no freshwater, no chemicals of any kind. The mussels just feed on the nutrients that exist naturally around them in the water. It helps improve the water clarity and quality. It's a native species and it grows abundantly in high density, which means we can grow a lot of super high-quality, nutrient-dense food in a very small footprint of the ocean."

One of about a half-dozen mussel farms in Maine -- including Blue Hill Bay Mussels, Hollander and de Koning and Pemaquid Mussel Farms -- Bangs Island Mussels produces about 600,000 pounds of mussels a year. Moretti estimated that Maine as a whole harvests as many as 5 million pounds of farmed mussels annually, a number he says could rise significantly with the right tweaks to the industry's permitting and approval processes (even as the wild mussel population decreases from warmer water and more predation).

Related Where have Maine's mussels gone?

Harbor Fish Market sells Maine and PEI mussels and notes how reasonably priced they are compared to much other seafood. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Harbor Fish Market co-owner Mike Alfiero noted that between the volume of the mussel harvest and the fact that they grow so quickly, mussels cost much less than slower-growing shellfish like oysters. Harbor Fish sells Bangs Island Mussels for about $6.50 a pound ($12.99 for a two-pound bag) and Canadian farmed mussels from Prince Edward Island for between $3.49 and about $4 per pound. For comparison, their oysters were on sale on Jan. 10 for about $20 a pound.

"Mussels are the least expensive seafood that you can buy, for the most part," Moretti said.

Yet their nutrition profile is outstanding. The protein in mussels contains all the essential amino acids, and studies have shown it's of higher quality than the protein in most fin fish. Mussels are also an excellent source of iron, Vitamin B12 and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

Mussel aficionados love these mollusks all year-round, and local chefs attest that Maine's farmed mussels are just as tasty in July. But the heart of the winter is when they tend to be at their plumpest and most flavorful.

"I like mussels particularly in the winter season," Moretti said. "They're fattening up. They spawn in the spring and summer, and they're growing slowly in the winter. They're richer this time of year."

Loreg said the Prince Edward Island mussels -- which for decades have been the mussel gold standard for American chefs -- tend to be much smaller and less plump than Maine mussels like Bangs Island, which she uses at Woodford. "Comparatively, it's like a different animal," she said. "Our mussels here fill the entire shell sometimes, which is kind of amazing."

The Canadian mussels are intentionally harvested sooner, she said, accounting for the different meat sizes. But their flavor is also more muted than Maine mussels, which she attributes to travel time.

"Lobsters are the same way," Loreg explained. "Once you take a lobster from Maine and you stick it in a box and ship it 600 miles away, it definitely tastes different. You lose the essence of the mussel the older it gets, just like any other shellfish."

Advertisement IN THE KITCHEN

So you've brought home a few pounds of Maine mussels for dinner. Now what?

Until you're ready to cook them, keep them refrigerated in their original packaging (often a mesh bag). They're still alive, and ideally, you'll cook them the same day you bought them.

But if you need to store them for longer, Alfiero recommends placing them in a colander, covering them with a damp cloth or paper towel to keep them from drying out, then topping them with ice. Set the colander in a slightly larger bowl to catch runoff from melting ice, and keep the mussels refrigerated this way for up to a few days, emptying the water in the bowl and replenishing ice as needed.

Baby mussels cling to ropes in the hatchery at the Downeast Insitute in Beals in this archive photo from 2015. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Unlike soft-shell clams, farmed mussels don't need to be covered in a salt water and cornmeal solution to purge sand and grit. "Soft-shell clams live in sand and mud and they're wild, so they need to be purged," Moretti explained. "Farmed mussels are suspended from ropes hanging in the water. There's nothing in them that needs to be purged out."

When you're ready to cook, give the mussels a quick rinse under cold water and pull off any "beards" -- the hairy-looking byssus threads that grow from the insides of mussels to help them attach to exterior surfaces -- sticking out from the shells (needle-nose pliers can be helpful if you're having a hard time gripping the beards with your fingers). Check through your mussels to find any shells that are open, which might indicate a dead mussel.

"Just because they're gaping doesn't mean they're dead," cautioned Moretti. "The way to test that is to tap the shell on a table, and if the mussel reacts, it's still alive. If it doesn't do anything, toss it. Or if it smells, definitely toss it."

The mussel dishes Sholl and Loreg serve at their restaurants riff off the crowd-pleasing French classic, moules marinières, which is basically mussels steamed in white wine with garlic, shallot, herbs and butter. Sholl sautés his aromatics and blooms the herbs before adding the mussels and wine to the pan, while Loreg adds them all in at once.

Mussels are ready to eat at The Good Table in Cape Elizabeth. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Other cooks add a little cream to the broth, while some like to include chopped bacon, chorizo or other smoked pork product. Sholl and Loreg made it a point to stress how many different directions you can take mussels in your own kitchen, depending on your taste.

"Mussels absorb a lot of flavor, and they give off a lot of flavor," Sholl said. "They're an umami-rich, oceanic canvas that you can just layer other flavors onto. And they're great for cooking at home, because you can use what you have in your refrigerator. If you like spicy, some sliced jalapeño is great. If you have a bunch of fresh herbs in your refrigerator, throw them in there. They play really nicely with lots of flavor profiles."

It's best to use no more than about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of wine (or beer, cider, stock or your cooking liquid of choice) to steam the mussels in a lidded pan, since much more could overpower the flavor of the mussel liquor and throw the finished dish off balance. After steaming them for a few minutes, the mussels are done once their shells fully open. If a mussel shell remains closed after the rest are gaping, it usually means that mussel was dead to begin with.

"If there are one or two that haven't opened, it's better to just discard those than to continue to cook on high heat waiting for them to maybe open," Sholl advised. "You don't want to keep cooking mussels after they've opened, or they can dry out."

A bonus technique: Moretti sometimes microwaves mussels, a move that raises eyebrows among culinary purists, though some seafood experts -- including the folks at Boston-based North Coast Seafoods -- agree it's a perfectly viable method. Moretti nukes a small batch of four or five mussels in a coffee mug for a minute or less, while North Coast and others cook 2 pounds for four minutes. The important point is to pull them from the microwave as soon as they've opened, or the meat may burst.

The advantage to using the microwave, Moretti said, is that you cook the mussels without adding any kind of steaming liquid.

"It's like the purest form of mussels you can eat," he said. "So often, the true flavor of mussels gets clouded by everything you cook them in. So by steaming them in nothing but their own juices -- no water or anything -- you get the pure essence of mussels, and I find it a really interesting flavor you wouldn't get otherwise. It's hard to tease out what makes mussel flavor really special, but you can when you're doing it in the microwave."

MUSSELS STEAMED IN WHITE WINE AND HERBS

Serve this dish with hunks of a good crusty bread to soak up the juices at the bottom of the bowl.

Serves 4

6 pounds live mussels (shells of about 2-2½ inches)

2 cups dry white wine

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/4 cup minced shallot

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons butter, cut in bits

1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Clean the mussels by scrubbing them well under cold running water. De-beard using your thumb and index finger to grasp and pull the little tangle of brown "hairs."

Place the wine, garlic, shallot, thyme and bay leaf in a large stockpot. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the mussels, cover the pot and raise the heat to high. Cook for 3-5 minutes, until all the shells have opened. (Discard any that do not open.)

With a slotted spoon, transfer the mussels to four large soup bowls. After the last mussel is out of the pot, raise the heat, add the butter, and stir (it will melt almost immediately). When the butter has melted, remove the pot from the heat, stir in the parsley, and ladle the liquid into the soup bowls, using all the broth. Serve immediately.

THAI STEAMED MUSSELS

Serves 2

The Alfiero family has tried mussels Italian style, with tomatoes and oregano, French style, with shallots, wine and cream, but it's this Thai preparation that has become a favorite in their home.

1/4 cup lime juice

6 ounces (1/2 can) unsweetened coconut milk

3/4 teaspoon Thai red curry paste

3/4 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce

1½ teaspoons sugar

2 pounds mussels, washed and de-bearded

1 cup chopped cilantro

Add the lime juice, coconut milk, curry paste, garlic, fish sauce and sugar to a large pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring, for 5 minutes.

Add the mussels and cook in the liquid until the mussels open, stirring occasionally. Add the cilantro about 5 minutes after adding the mussels.

Serve the mussels in individual bowls and add broth to each bowl.

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