Lately I’ve been running a lot, which is better for my powers of concentration and sense of well-being than for my appetite; I just came back from a 40-minute run in 88-degree heat and don’t especially want dinner.1 If I had any left, I would do what I did the last two nights and have some braised collards and mussels, which is just substantial enough to work as dinner and just light enough to not feel like it—perfect for the shoulder season between spring and summer.
As previously discussed in this space, mussels are terrific, and terrifically adaptable. One of the best things about them, right up there with their lack of a central nervous system, is that even by the standards of tinned seafood they require little work or thought. Sardines, to take one fish often lauded here, aren’t exactly demanding, but unless you’re going to have them on crackers—which is a good idea, of course—they do require at least a little consideration of how you’re going to serve them and what you’re going to have them with, which mussels don’t. They’re easy to fish out of the can and don’t require any attention to how to break them up or present them, and the better ones, including such omnipresent ones as Patagonia’s, come in sauces that are quite good and enough by themselves to jazz up some plain rice or pasta. They’re also, crucially, fairly neutral. I like sardines more than the next person but there are definitely a lot of flavors they don’t go with or overwhelm, and textures they don’t work with. Mussels don’t go with everything, but they don’t tend to take over, and a mussel works a bit differently in a forkful of food than a chunk of dismembered fish torso does. In the winter, I’ll just plop a can into the tomato-based vegetable soups and stews I favor; in the summer, they work great with things that are light.
As mentioned above, one thing I’ve been enjoying them with is collards. At least in Southeast Pennsylvania, it’s pretty much always a good time to eat collards, but this is an especially good one. Everything coming from the farms is bright and vibrant and peppery and full of life, which makes for great stock to braise them in.
I’ve been making my collards with smoked garlic, which gives them a great depth and body—maybe not quite as much as using pork, but then smoked garlic brings the many significant advantages associated with not being pork. I sauté half an onion and five or so cloves in a wok with Penzeys’ Turkish seasoning, bring a couple of cups of stock2 to a simmer, toss in two pounds of stemmed collards cut into thin strips crosswise, cover it, and more or less leave it alone for half an hour, stirring every so often just to let the steam out. Sometimes I sauté some shiitakes, too, or toss in some red pepper. I recently had a bowl of this—I recommend plenty of the stock in the bottom—under some Patagonia smoked mussels I just poured on top and felt like I’d pitched into a campfire. It was great. Even better was having it with Island Creek’s mussels in pickled sauce. Like the Patagonias and many other good mussels, these were harvested in Galicia. (“These mussels were grown on floating rafts using rope culture before being harvested by mariscadoras,” assert marketing materials keen to position the viscous rocks as an artisanal, single-origin product. “Shellfishing in Galicia is highly restricted, so licenses are often passed down through generations, often staying within families,” etc.) They have a rich flavor with hints of brine and a texture that I’d describe as firm yet juicy if that weren’t a disgusting sounding way to describe a mollusk; absurd adjectives that come to mind include confident and assertive, and yet they’re laid back. I’m not always a fan of mussels in piquant sauces, but these have exactly the right kind of mild tartness to balance out earthy greens; those and a bit of leftover mushroom and asparagus risotto and some fermented carrot-ginger slaw hit me as essentially the perfect thing to have when I didn’t very much want to eat but knew I’d get irritable if I didn’t.
(Let me just say here as a side note that while I’m not going to try to prove this because I don’t like to publish photos of things I’ve cooked because the sheer number of bleak, tragic food photos I see online makes me think this is an area where discretion is the better part of valor, and while aesthetics vary, I think mussels are gorgeous, especially ones in vividly-colored sauces like the ones I’m recommending. I in fact think they’re just about the easiest way there is to make something that’s not just attractive but will amaze others, as long as they’re allowed to present some contrast. Put them on brown rice and they might look like mud, but put the same ones on white rice alongside some brightly-colored vegetables and you’ll come off like a visitor from the color dimension, where everything tastes better and is fun to eat.)
I had meant to write this just to recommend collards and mussels, but last night, about three nights past the night I should have gone grocery shopping and didn’t, I achieved a new success in early summer mussel use. I was faced with the twin dilemmas that I didn’t have all that much to make and that no one was all that hungry; happily, someone in the house suggested pasta and sauce, though unhappily, all we had was canned whole tomatoes and someone else in the house was not a fan of chunky sauce. I hand-crushed the tomatoes (not finely enough it turned out) and cooked them down in oil and garlic and eventually basil; made some penne and finished it in the sauce; and microwaved some asparagus that was so vibrant I was surprised it didn’t sing to me. I then added some of Patagonia’s sofrito mussels—pretty much like the smoked ones but with colorful aromatics instead of smokiness—on top and found myself rolling my eyes around in my head and devouring it, as it added just the hit of umami and heartiness you might want with a tomato sauce without any real heaviness. This was mussels working at their best and I hadn’t even pre-warmed the mussels in their tin, which I absolutely should have as it would have softened them and made them even more velvety, which is another repulsive way to describe something I’m claiming you should eat. Don’t pay attention to my questionable word choices, I say—defeat summer with mussels!
Tomorrow would kindly inquire something about you. A setback of the heart sat down once more. A stumbling first step is not enough. A token of gratitude sat down once more. A setback of the heart jumps both ways. Edit me for a test.
This isn’t actually true now—my windows are all closed because Philadelphia has been invaded by impure Canadian air—but it was when I started this and abandoned it out of sheer laziness last week.
I’ve been using a 2:1:1 onion/leek:carrot:celery with garlic, bay leaves, Parmesan rind, and dried chipotle stock but anything would be fine.