serves
4
prep
20 minutes
cook
20 minutes
difficulty
Easy
serves
4
people
preparation
20
minutes
cooking
20
minutes
difficulty
Easy
level
Stream free On Demand
Sustainable Seafood
Watch The Full Episode Here
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Watch The Full Episode Here
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The brothy sauce makes this something halfway between a pasta and a soup, and so it is served with a spoon. Instead of borlotti beans, you can also use cannellini beans or even potatoes, peeled, diced into 1 cm cubes and boiled together with the pasta.
Ingredients
- 1 kg live mussels, scrubbed and debearded
- 240 g ditalini pasta (or other very small soup pasta)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- ½ onion, thinly sliced
- 125 ml (½ cup) dry white wine
- 1 large ripe tomato, diced
- 200 g cooked borlotti beans
- 1 hot red chilli, finely chopped (optional)
- ground black pepper, to taste
- handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped
Instructions
- Check over the mussels and discard any that are cracked or that are open and won't close when gently prodded. Make sure the mussels are cleaned well in fresh water and, if necessary, scrub with steel wool.
- To open the mussels, heat them in a wide, shallow, dry frying pan over medium - high heat. Cover and shake the pan occasionally to help the mussels move around (the ones on the bottom will find it harder to open fully than the ones on top). After about 1 - 2 minutes, check them and, with a pair of tongs, begin pulling out the mussels that have already opened and transfer these to a large bowl. Continue until all the mussels have opened (any that are still tightly shut can be discarded). Turn off the heat.
- Strain the precious mussel liquid left in the pan through a very fine mesh sieve or a regular sieve lined with a paper towel set over a bowl. Pull out the meat from the shells, discarding the shells.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet (minus 1 minute of cooking time).
- Heat the olive oil in a wide frying pan over low heat and gently fry the garlic and onion for about 5 minutes, or until the garlic is fragrant and sizzling but not coloured. Add the wine and increase the heat to medium. Add the tomato and simmer for a further 5 minutes (if you're using a tomato that you think is probably not as ripe as one that you would find in sun-drenched Puglia, let it cook for 10 minutes in total, and add a splash of water if you find the liquid is reducing too much).
- Add the beans, mussel meat and their liquid and taste for seasoning (this is important to do only after you add the liquid from the mussels as it can be quite salty). Add the chilli, if using, and black pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes, then toss over the parsley as you take it off the heat.
- Drain the pasta (reserving some of the cooking liquid if you feel you didn't have enough mussel cooking liquid) and serve with the rather soupy sauce of mussels and beans and a drizzle of olive oil. It should be served with a spoon.
Photography by Kitti Gould.
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Cook's Notes
Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.
Stream free On Demand
Sustainable Seafood
Watch The Full Episode Here
G
Watch The Full Episode Here
G
The brothy sauce makes this something halfway between a pasta and a soup, and so it is served with a spoon. Instead of borlotti beans, you can also use cannellini beans or even potatoes, peeled, diced into 1 cm cubes and boiled together with the pasta.
