Steamed Mussels over Israeli Couscous

Steamed mussel is one of my favorite dishes to go with a glass of beer in the evening. Mussel is an ingredient that can be prepared really quick and easy, and it also is a very versatile ingredient which can absorb so many flavors.

It can be an Indian dish if you use curry powder, it can be Mediterranean if you add olive, lemon and herbs, it can be Italian if you add tomato and basil, it can be Chinese if you add fermented black bean and scallions, or it can be Spanish if you add saffron and chorizo. There are so many ways you can cook the mussels.

You can just simply serve steamed mussels... but, you definitely don't want to waste the delicious cooking juice. Although you can dip a piece of bread into the juice, I'd rather serve the mussels over couscous (like today's recipe) or pasta which will soak all the juice from fennel and mussels, creating a beautiful main dish.

Steamed Mussels over Israeli Couscous
(Yield: 4 servings / Cooking time: 20 minutes)

Ingredients:
+ 20 mussels (five per serving)
+ 6oz Israeli couscous*
+ 2.5 cups low sodium chicken broth**
+ 1/2 cup dry white wine
+ one bulb of fennel***
+ two large tomatoes OR 8-10 cherry tomatoes
+ a few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley
+ a half of lemon
+ 3 cloves of garlic
+ olive oil
+ salt & pepper

* Israeli couscous is sometimes called as "pearl couscous".

** Prepare the chicken broth as much as the cooking instruction on the couscous package calls for (most of the time, the cooking instruction calls for 'water', not chicken broth. I think chicken broth gives much more flavor to the dish than water). I used diluted homemade chicken stock instead of chicken broth by mixing equal portion of water and chicken stock. To see chicken stock recipe, please click here.

*** If you don't like fennel, you can replace it with onion.




Procedures:

1. First, we need to prepare each ingredient.

- Mussels: If there are any open mussels, give them a tap on the counter. If they close, they are still alive, but if they stay open, that means the mussels are not alive and therefore not fresh. Please throw away those.
A mussel has "beard" which was the part attached to the surface of rocks. Pinch the beard with a dry cloth and pull out. You can do this with bare hands, but the beard is slippery and it is easier if you use dry cloth. Because a mussel is dying after the beard is removed, please make sure to remove the beard when you are ready to cook the mussel right away.


- Fennel: Remove any thick tough dirty outer layers, and also remove the core. Slice length-wise.
- Tomatoes: If you use large tomatoes, slice it in strips. For cherry tomatoes, just cut once or twice to bite size.
- Lemon: Zest the lemon with zester, and squeeze the juice.
- Parsley: Remove any tough stem, chop roughly the leaves and soft stem.
- Garlic cloves: Peel and chop finely or slice thinly.

2. Boil the chicken broth over high heat.


3. Pour Israeli couscous and lower the heat to low. Add a teaspoon of salt.


4. Cook the Israeli couscous over low heat without a lid until it absorbs all the liquid (about 10-12 minutes). You need to stir Israeli couscous a few times just to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of pan and burns. Turn off the heat. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed. Drizzle some olive oil and mix the couscous. Keep warm until served.


5. In a separate pot, drizzle some olive oil and sweat sliced fennel over medium-low heat until fennel slices are softened and translucent.


6. Add garlics and sweat until you can smell garlic fragrance.


7. Add cleaned mussels and pour white wine. Stir the mussels.


8. Add tomatoes, and cover the pot with a lid and increase the heat to medium-high. Cook for 2~3 minutes until the mussels open.




9. After 2~3 minutes, open the lid and stir the vegetables & mussels. Make sure every mussel opened its mouth. If there are any closed ones, cook for another 1~2 minutes covered with a lid. If they are still closed, they are not fresh... throw away those.


10. Place Israeli couscous on a plate and top it with fennel, tomatoes and mussels. Drizzle the delicious cooking juice over it and sprinkle lemon zest and parsley. A few drops of lemon juice will brighten up the dish.


Enjoy~