Choose & Cook Mussels

Choosing:

• Spotting the good ones: At the fish counter, use your eyes and your nose to guide you. Fresh mussels should look tightly closed or just slightly gaping open. Make sure their shells are closed or that they close immediately with a gentle tap. That's an indication that they're still alive. If they're yawning wide, they're dead or close to it. Once you have them in hand, take a sniff. They should smell like the sea. If they're really fishy smelling, don't buy them.
• Discard any whose shells open prior to cooking.
• Buy more than the quantity required, since you’ll likely have to discard a few that don’t open during cooking.

Prepping:

• Just before cooking, look for any shellfish that have opened and tap them on the counter. If they don't close, discard them. Check closed mussels by pressing on the two shells in opposing directions. Dead ones will fall apart. Once you've weeded out the bad ones, scrub the remaining mussels under cold running water with a stiff brush to get rid of any grit. If the mussels have “beards”—black hairy fibers sticking out of their shells—pinch them and yank them off.

Storing:

• Keeping them fresh: Store in an open plastic bag (shellfish will suffocate in a sealed bag) in the refrigerator on a bed of ice in a large bowl or dish with sides. Refresh ice as it melts, and use within a day.

De-Bearding:

• Most mussel farmers are now debearding them before sending them to market, but if you see any brown threads poking out from a mussel shell, simply grasp them between your thumb and forefinger, and pull.

Cooking:

• Steaming is the most common way to cook them. You can use water, which will turn into a savory broth as the mussels open and release their juices, but for even more oomph, you can steam them in wine, beer, or broth, and add aromatics. Even though the mussels cook in 5 to 10 minutes, they’ll soak up the flavor of whatever they’re cooked in, and you’ll be left with a tasty broth perfect for sopping up with crusty bread.
• Try roasting mussels for a different flavor. Dry heat concentrates their flavor, but they stay super juicy. Here, too, you can add aromatics, or not. This method also cooks them in under 10 minutes