Today we are going to prepare
a dish in my kitchen; it is a very simple dish
of the Italian tradition. We are going to do a seafood dish
some "linguine" [but you can also use spaghetti], also known as "trenette"
with a very simple sauce made with mussles and tomato
we should start by cleaning the mussles
we first have to remove the so called "wick", simply pull it like this,
then we can give it a little rub on the shell to remove dirt, if present ...
and we do the same for the rest of them. [Here you can see clearly the "wick" and how it is removed]
now we can proceed to the final washing of the mussles, with running cold water
I like them to be very clean
let's start heating them [I only put the mussles in the pan, no additional water or anything], on high heat [9 is the max level of my cooker]
we cover them with a lid and leave them
[regarding the tomato] instead of completely cooking it, if it is well ripened, like you want it for this recipe
you can peel it, chop it into pieces, and add it to the cooking sauce in the final stages, so to only partially cook it
now, once we have peeled it, we reomve the hard top, which would deteriorate our sauce,
we also remove the harder part on the inside of it, but before finishing, do this trick:
cut a cross on the bottom of it,
and squeeze it to remove the most watery part of the juice,
and the seeds, as well
[you want a soft, fully ripened, red tomato for this]
you shouldn't rinse it, or it would lose some the taste
you should be able to smell a delicious odor [over the pan where the mussles are being heated]
...the scent of the sea...
ok, now we turn off the heating and get them to cool a little
and then we take the tomato, which we prepared earlier,
and we slice it this way [half an inch to one inch thick pieces]
some of the tomato chunks will be added raw at the end of the proceudre, so we set it aside for now
and the other part will be cooked with the sauce
the main taste should be that of the mussles, [the other ingredients should be "in the background"]
now we can take a small piece of a [red or yellow] pepper,
we have already removed the seeds, as well,
and we slice it into very fine pieces
same thing for a garlic clove
the reason why we are chooping some of the ingredients into fine pieces
is that we don't want to have big chunks of vegetables in our sauce.
at the end of the dish, nothing unedible or unwanted should remain [this is the best approach for degustation, the dish will be more pleasant to eat than it is to watch]
Ok then, so we have our tomato chunks,
pepper, garlic
a slice of lemon,
Parsley [suggested, but you can do without it]
one leaf of laurel
now let's take our mussles, and shell them
in order to prepare the final sauce
as you can see we have shelled all the mussles,
this is the result of it,
and here you can see some others remaining together with the cooking juice
we want to add all of the cooking juice to our pot
...except for the last bit, which may contain some dirt released by the shells
in this case we were careful in cleaning and washing the mussels, so almost nothing remains
[Add abundant olive oil to a pan]
then add garlic and turn on the stove on medium-high
add the chopped pepper,
we then add a slice of lemon, like that
the leaf of laurel
I think I am going to need a little more olive oil
we then add the first tomato pile
Now, if we were to add the parsley now to the sauce
we would have it to get overcooked, and change color from green to brown
parsley is green, and it should remain like that throughout the whole procedure
as for the pasta,  I am going to use
some "linguine", or "trenette" [if you don't find them you can use spaghetti]
they are a durum wheat pasta, typically extruded with bronze dies and rough on the surface
so that it soaks the sauce well
we are going to use 100 grams [3.5 ounces] of it for each person
we put the pasta in already boiling water...
...regarding salt, it is not needed. [You can add some to the water if you like it, but do not exaggerate with it]
[do not add salt to the sauce]
at this point we can remove the leaf of laurel
which has already released its scent
we remove the lemon, as well...
which has already released its flavor
I am now adding the first half of the parsley I chopped; I just turned down the heat
...and in order not to overcook it [as I said earlier], I am immediately going to add the muscles
[which are warm, but cooler than the sauce]
we are therefore preventing the parsley from getting overcooked
at this point the sauce is almost ready, we don't need to keep it on high heat
so we are just going to bring it back to a boil, before adding the pasta and mixing everything together
as you can see I got the sauce back to boiling [which is still cooler than before, since earlier is was mainly oil, and now mainly water]
we can mix everything for a few seconds
let's see if the pasta is ready [consistency of it, depending on your preference]
[self explanatory ;)  ]
we can then add the pasta to the sauce [we are almost done]
now let's add the last part of tomato [which is raw]
and the last part of the parsley [raw, as well]
by adding the raw tomato we can really
taste the freshness of the tomato
the only remaining thing is to put it in the dishes...
[...and we're done ;P]
we can now taste it, what do you think?
the dishes are ready, we are going to be three people today
let me just taste the dish I just prepared
the taste of the sea, all of the other flavours...
...a jubilation of scents and tastes...
... an excellent mediterranean mouthfeel
Now i'd finally love to match some wine to this dish,
I am going to use a local white wine, (made in "le Marche"), made with grapes coming from the "Malvasia" family.
[To find a similar wine, look for the follwing: a white wine of medium structure, sweetish, fresh on the palate, with scents of yellow fruit]
