Mussels - Plating the Dish

Bryan Davis: Hi, my name is Bryan Davis form Chef Bryan's Kitchen and today we are making Steamed Mussels with Tarragon Vinaigrette. We have got our mussels steamed, we have got our vinaigrette made and we have just pulled out our reduced poaching liquid. So what we are going to do, this has reduced down to just about a quarter of a cup and basically what we want to do is just give it a little taste and make sure that we get a nice mussel flavor and that also we do not get a really strong acidic bite from the lime. So this is -- it has got a great mussel flavor and I have got no bite from the lime, so we are pretty much ready to go with that. So I am going to show you how to plate there is a couple of different ways. First, we are going to do a salad. So I have chucked some mussels here and basically what you do is mussels are open. All you do is open them up and just pull them up. So you just open it up and pull it down. This is for the salad. You could definitely serve these in the shell, but for a salad I like pulling them out of the shell, so that people do not have to get in and dig through the dressed greens to get the mussels.

So what we are going to do is we are going to take our mussels and basically we are going to put them in a little bit of the vinaigrette and we are just going to pour a little bit of the vinaigrette right in with the mussels, give it a little stir. The vinaigrette is already seasoned. So we really do not need to add any more salt and pepper. The mussels are nicely seasoned from the court-bouillon and then basically what we are going to do is we are just going to pour them right over the top of the greens. So we have got our mussels there and then we are just going to take a little bit more of the vinaigrette and just drizzle it over the rest of the salad.

I am going to finish it off with a little bit of color; couple of grape tomatoes here. So there is the mussel salad. Now let us put together the mussel shooters. We have our shut mussels here, we have our clean shells. Basically you want to do, is we pull the shells apart, we rinse these under cold water, massaging them with the thumbs just to get all the green and the sand, any undesirable off the shells and then what we are going to do is we are going to take our -- rest of our reduced liquid, we are going to pour it into our dressing. I am going to stir it up to combine. This is going to thin out the dressing a little bit, but it is not a problem, since we are looking for a - sort of an oyster shooter type of thing.

If you like it a little more thick, just grab a little bit more of your olive oil and stir it in. The olive oil will thicken it right back up. What we are going to do is we are going to take our clean shell, I am going to take some of our tarragon vinaigrette, put that in there and then we are just going to top it with the mussel. So we have got one there, take another shell and this would be a great dish for cocktail party or first course seeded for a dinner and just take the mussels and just set them right in there and so for -- we will do one more because you have to taste them before you can serve them. So we just put our vinaigrette in there, top it with a mussel and there we have it. Nice mussel shooter, had a great flavor from the champagne vinegar, the reduced liquid gives it a nice, I want to say strong, but a nice mussel flavor and the crunch from the raw celery and texture from the hard boiled egg, makes a complete delight for the taste buds. So there you have it, the mussel salad and the mussel shooters.