Mussels in Shallot Cream Sauce

Mussels are up there among my very favorite kinds of shellfish, and this recipe for mussels with shallot cream sauce is one of the reasons why.  They are delicious, they are inexpensive, they are reliably easy to cook, and they are all kinds of dramatic with their pretty blue shells.  Combine all THAT with some delicate angel hair pasta and a creamy, dreamy shallot wine sauce and I am head over heels in seafood love.

This also gives me the chance to tell you about one of the Southern husband’s preferred way to eat certain dishes like this one, but in the meantime, let’s make it!

This recipe for mussels with shallot cream sauce and pasta will have you coming back for seconds!Click To TweetOkay!  First you need to get yourself a bag or two of mussels.  You want to figure on about a half pound of mussels per person, which is going to work out to a lot less than it seems, because a lot of that is those pretty pretty shells.   You’ll also need some white wine (any kind is fine), some butter and flour and a little cream (not that much, don’t worry) and eggs for the sauce, and one of these babies.

That is a shallot, and it is a close but fancy cousin to an onion.  I love shallots.  They make everything, well, fancier.

One of the things I love about this recipe is that nothing goes to waste.  You are going to cook up the super simple base for the cream sauce at the same time that you are simmering up your mussels in a mixture of white wine and shallots  and clam juice (and as always, rinse those mussels well and toss any that have cracked or open shells).  Once the mussels are wide open and cooked, you are going to scoop them out and pour all that cooking liquid deliciousness into the sauce.  Which you are going to finish with some cream and egg yolks until it is silky deliciousness, laced with little pieces of shallot.

YUM.

Now you are going assemble this extravaganza of scrumptiousness by putting the mussels on a bed of angel hair pasta (the super skinny pasta) and then pouring the shallot sauce over everything.  Now, if you are having more than a couple of people at your table, you will want to divide this among individual soup bowls.

However, if it is just you and another special someone, you can do what the Southern husband loves more than anything when it comes to eating dinner, and that is to serve it up in one big dish with two forks.  I have had this pasta bowl forever and a day, and I love it so much.

Isn’t it so cheery and self-explanatory?  You can’t tell from the picture, but it also is a nice deep bowl, just right for holding the pasta and the sauce and the mussels.  We both tuck a napkin under our chins, dunk our forks in and start twirling.

No matter how you serve it, remember to put out a bowl for the mussel shells, and make sure you get at least one bite that has pasta AND sauce AND mussel in it.  And we all lived happily ever after!

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