Recipes: Tomato chilli mussels with doozy garlic bread

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 7 years ago

Recipes: Tomato chilli mussels with doozy garlic bread

By Darren Robertson and Mark LaBrooy

With winter on its way, it's time to bring out the body-warming dishes. We like to cook this for family and friends. With plenty of garlic and chilli, the potency of your breath afterwards means you probably want to be pretty close to the people you make it for.

We use Kinkawooka mussels, harvested sustainably in Port Lincoln, South Australia, cooking them in a lovely rich and saucy tomato broth. If you're really hungry and want to trick the dish up more, you can add pieces of snapper, flathead or blue eyed cod to the sauce at the first sign of the mussels opening.

Mussels and garlic bread will warm your taste buds during the colder months.

Mussels and garlic bread will warm your taste buds during the colder months.Credit: Edwina Pickles

The dish is also lovely with pasta - cook 250 grams of your favourite variety and add it to the sauce a minute or two before serving. And our garlic bread, as the name says, is a doozy with its secret ingredient – chilli adds some heat to the old classic.

Tomato chilli mussels

4 tbsp olive oil

1 garlic bulb, cloves peeled and roughly chopped

2 red onions, roughly chopped

2 long red chillies, finely sliced

1/2 a fennel bulb, roughly chopped

Advertisement

4 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

400g tin crushed tomatoes

150ml red wine

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

2kg black mussels

½ bunch basil, roughly chopped

½ bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

1 lemon, finely zested and juiced

Use a large, heavy-set pot, preferably cast iron. Put it on high heat and add the oil, garlic, onions, chilli and fennel. Cook until the onions start to become slightly translucent. Add the fresh and crushed tomatoes, red wine and balsamic vinegar. Add pepper to taste and a pinch or two of salt – bear in mind the mussels will still have salty sea water in them. Cook on a high heat until the sauce thickens. The fennel should be soft and the fresh tomatoes should be broken down. Add the mussels and about 50 millilitres of the liquid from the mussel bag, and cover the pot. At the first sign of the mussels opening – start checking them from about four minutes – add the fresh herbs. Continue cooking on a high heat for 2-3 minutes or until all the mussels have opened. Just before serving, add the lemon zest and juice. To serve, put the pot at the centre of the table, drop a ladle in and let everyone help themselves. Ditto the garlic bread.

Serves 4

Doozy garlic bread

1 sourdough loaf

250g salted butter, coarsely grated

1 long red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

½ garlic bulb, peeled and finely chopped

1/3 bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

pepper and salt flakes

Preheat oven to 220C. Cut sourdough into 2-centimetre-thick slices. Add the grated butter, chilli, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper to a medium-sized bowl. Mix it by hand – the heat in your hands will help soften it. Spread it thickly onto one side of each bread slice and put the loaf back together. Wrap in aluminium foil and heat in the oven for 20 minutes.

Serves 4

TIP

Prepare the garlic bread while the sauce for the mussels is cooking.

Most Viewed in Lifestyle

Loading