Cooking: Steamed Mussels

The CBS Early Show has a spot on the weekends called "Chef on a Shoestring" where famous chefs are given $40 and told to prepare a multi-course meal for 4. A few years ago they put out a cookbook containing many of the recipes.

I've tried a few of the recipes so far and they have been pretty good. One of my favorites is a recipe for steamed mussels. I had never tried to make a dish with mussels before but this was pretty easy. It reminded me of a dish I had in Brussels a few years ago. I guess mussels are very popular there, especially when served with fries and a good beer.

The recipe below is simple and takes 5 minutes to make. Serve over linguine or angel hair pasta to make a complete meal.

Steamed Mussels and Linguine
Adapted from "Chef on a Shoestring"

• 1 lb. mussels
• 1 large onion
• 1 large tomato
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup white wine

1. Clean the mussels
2. Dice the onion and garlic. Remove the seeds from the tomato and dice.
3. In a skillet or large pot, heat the oil and add all of the ingredients. Cover and steam for 5 minutes until the mussels open. Discard any unopened mussels.
4. Serve the mussels with the broth over pasta.
5. Enjoy!

Serves 2 as a meal.