Friday, February 17, 2012

French Fridays with Dorie: Mussels and Chorizo with Pasta

It's been a cold, windy and rainy week, so this French Fridays with Dorie Mussels with Chorizo slipped in just fine for a cozy Valentine's dinner at home. After dinner, we cuddled up on the couch to catch the second night of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Incredibly romantic, I know, but we had to cheer on the Newf, and other working group favorites, while polishing off a nice bottle of prosecco that somehow managed to survive Saturday's dinner party!

Used my lovely copper cataplana for sauteing the ingredients and steaming the mussels

Whole Foods carries a wonderful Spanish chorizo in a 1/2-pound link, and black mussels from Carlsbad Aquafarm. Since it was just the two of us, and Dorie's recipe serves 4, I cut all the quantities in half, using about 2 lbs. mussels, 1/4 lb. chorizo, half an onion, shallot, half a red bell pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, a few sprigs of thyme, and one 14.5-ounce can of tomatoes (I used Muir Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes). I substituted prosecco (about 1/2 cup), in place of dry white wine, since that's what we were drinking for the evening.


Once the ingredients are ready, the dish takes only about 15 minutes to prepare. First, you saute the bell pepper, onion, garlic, thyme, and salt and pepper for about 5 minutes; then you toss in the tomatoes and chorizo and saute for another 5 minutes; and then you add the mussels and wine, increase the heat to high, and cover and steam for another 5 minutes until the mussels have opened. The mussels can be served over pasta, or with hunks of crusty bread for sopping up the sauce. I had a half package of bucatini pasta, so I cooked and tossed that in, but we also had some bread.


This was very good, especially with the chorizo, but I didn't care so much for the canned tomatoes. Maybe a couple of fresh Romas would be better - it was just too tomato-y for me. John felt it needed a touch of red pepper flakes and squeeze of lemon.

Dorie has two other mussels recipes in the book, Curried Mussels and Moules Mariniere, both of which I am looking forward to trying in the cataplana! I love my cataplana.

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French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s newest book Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing. I highly recommend adding it to your cookbook collection if you haven't already!

10 comments:

Cher Rockwell said...

Everything looks great! What a great mid-week meal.

Rose said...

That pot is absolutely beautiful! What a fun way to cook up your mussels. And I'm sure fresh tomatoes would be tasty as well, but around here there is no way I could find tomatoes at this time of year which would taste anything like tomatoes. Sad but true.

Tammy said...

Your photos are beautiful and I'm head over heels in love with your copper cataplana! I halved all the ingredients as well and had plenty left over, too ... I know what lunch will be today. ;)

Trevor Sis Boom said...

You win for the most beautiful pictures of the week. They just capture this dish perfectly in my opinion. Great job although the 4 lbs fed us without leftovers so I'm glad I didn't cut the recipe in half!

Adriana said...

I love your cataplana too! What a beauty. Any evening that has you sharing a gorgeous meal and something you both love with your sweetie is special. I did enjoy the tomatoes, especially since most of them melted into the pasta sauce the next day.

Anonymous said...

I'm excited to make this again and play around with different ingredients but we really loved this one! :) A nice alternative to the white wine sauce!

Alice @ http://acookingmizer.wordpress

Guyla said...

Love your beautiful copper pot! Your food looks great too and it sounds like a fun evening!

Christy said...

Your Cataplana is gorgeous! Sounds like other than the mussels we had a similar Valentines, as we also watched Westminster - we keep hoping for more Havanese! Loved the rain this week, and our mountains are topped with snow.

Teresa said...

The cataplana is beautiful, as is the meal you used it to make. We really enjoyed this dish and I'm also looking forward to trying Dorie's other mussels recipes.

Daily Deal Blog said...

Great mussels recipe! Love your photo it's absolutely stunning!