Appetizers
·
Entrees

Steamed Mussels with Celery Leaf Salad

Recipe from Root to Stalk Cooking by Tara Duggan.

With its mild astringency and juicy freshness, celery is a wonderful foil to strongly flavored seafood. In this recipe you use the outer celery stalks to steam mussels and then serve them with a cold celery leaf salad for crunch and flavor. 

Prep Time

0 minutes

Cook Time

1 minutes

Yield

4 Servings

Ingredients

2 cups celery (tender stalks, thinly sliced inner hearts)
2 pepper, piquillo (jarred or roasted red bell peppers, cut into thin strips)
2 tablespoons olive oil, extra virgin
  salt, kosher (to taste)
  black pepper, ground (to taste)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 celery (outer stalks, sliced 1-inch thick)
1⁄2 onion (sliced )
4 garlic (cloves, peeled and lightly crushed)
4 lemon zest (thin strips)
1 red chile, dried (small, torn in half)
1 bay leaf
1 cup white wine, dry
3 pounds mussels (scrubbed and debearded if needed )

Instructions

To make the salad, place the celery leaves, hearts, and piquillo peppers in a large bowl. Toss with the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside or refrigerate for up to 2 hours.

To make the mussels, heat the olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the celery, onion, garlic, lemon zest, chile, and bay leaf and cook until the vegetables are tender (about 8 minutes). Add the wine and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add the mussels, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and steam the mussels, covered, until they are plump and their shells have opened wide (about 4-5 minutes). Discard any mussels that did not open.

Serve the mussels out of the pot, either with the salad on the side or as a garnish on top of the mussels.