Pasta con le cozze

The most annoying part pf this wonderful dish is to me the pre-party one, when you have to clean the mussels and debeard them. Funny how this operation has the same name in Italian too!

I am a strong believer that pasta with mussels as the one with clams has to be white, no tomato sauce for me. I have to taste the sea and do not want any other flavour (apart white wine of course) to stay in between!

But, you know, life (and marriage) is about compromise so as an extreme act of love I added three spoon of tomato polpa to the garlic and olive oil.

It turned out fantastic even if this will cost me a lot to admit!

Here you find the recipe.

Check also the recipe for cozze as a starter because they go together really well!

Ingredients for 2 people

500 gr of fresh mussels

220 gr of linguine or spaghetti

3 spoons of tomato polpa

2 cloves of garlic

extra virgin olive oil

salt

Method

After you have cleaned and debearded your mussels, place them in a large bowl with warm water and a spoon of salt for 20 minutes.

Now they are ready to be cooked.

In a large pan place your mussels and cook them until they open up.

For the pasta I like to have the mussels without shells, so I remove the shells from the amount of mussels I would like to use. Around 20 in this case.

Bring the water for your pasta to boil, add some coarse sea salt and cook 220 gr of Linguine or Spaghetti.

In a large pan put some extra virgin olive oil and place your garlic cloves, cook for couple of minutes and add the tomato sauce. Stir a bit and after two minutes add the mussels. Add two spoons of pasta water.

When your pasta is al dente (or even two minutes before) transfer the pasta to the pan with the mussels. Add two more spoon of cooking water and stir until cooked. (If needed add more water)

The pasta will be creamy and silky.

Enjoy!