With Verdicchio
- Category: Starters, White Wine
Ingredients
Mussles
- 500 g mussles
- 80 g celery
- 300 g onion, yellow or vidalia
- 50 g butter
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp. flour
- 200 mL white wine
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp. salt
Potatoe purée
- 500 g potatoes
- 1/4 g powdered saffron (if you don’t have powder either crush in mortar and pestle, or steep in either 1/2tsp of water or neutral sprit like vodka.
- tbsp. salt
- 1 tbsp. salt for water bath.
Gremolata
- 7 g parlsey
- 25 g vidalia onion
- 1 tsp. white balsamic
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tbsp. water
- 3 pinches salt
Other
- parley for garnish
- edible flowers (optional)
- a potatoe press is great to have to make a smooth purée
Preparation
- Water bath: Let mussels sit in a big tub of salted water in the fridge for 2-4 hours so they can release all the sediment
Mussels
- Chop 80gr celery and 300gr onion
- In a large pot sauté celery and onion with 3tbs of olive oil & 0.5tbs salt. Cook on high heat for 5 minutes, then on low heat for 5 min. Stirring occasionally.
- Add 50gr butter, 1tbs flour, and cook on medium heat for 1 min, then add 2dl white wine.
- Strain the mussels and add them to the pot of the onion mixture.
- Add 2 pressed garlic cloves to the mussels and give it a stir.
- Steam mussels with a lid on, on medium-high heat for 10-12 min, stirring occasionally.
- Remove the mussels from the pot, put 4dl of the onion mixture in blender. If there's any extra it can be disposed.
- Blend the mixture with 0.25gr of saffron until smooth.
Saffron potatoe purée:
- Peel & boil potatoes (in 1L of water with 1tsp of salt) on medium-high heat with the lid on, for 20-30 min (or until soft).
- Once boiled, press the potatoes with a potatoe press directly into the warm onion & saffron mixture.
Gremolata
- Chop the onion, then blend all the ingredients together.
Plating
- Sprits dollops of the potatoe puré in a line. Dollops getting smaller as you move down the plate.
- Add small dollops of the gremolata randomly around the potatoe purée.
- Stand 5-7 mussels per person in the potatoe purée.
- Decorate with edible-grade edible flowers petals such as carnations, nasturtiums, pansies, and top with fresh parsley.