This recipe I did during my first week at San Sebastián, to remember old times. In Spain one eats pickled mussels a lot, usually in a bar or at home and as a tapa; we serve the mussel over a potato chip with its juice and that’s it! Delicious!

A technique that I want to tell you about in this occasion is how to treat the mussel. Due to the fact that when we cook the “escabeche” we will be giving heat to the mussel, what we do in the previous step is only blanching the mussel. We open them with the help of a paring knife almost as if they were oysters. This allows us to get very big mussels and very tasty mussels as well.

So, in this recipe we work how to cook in acids, managing seafood and also a delicious recipe to enjoy with friends! Very complete!!

Preparation and handling of the mussels.

• First, filaments need to be removed, this is accomplished by cleaning with a pairing knife under running water. They should not be kept under water because they will open.
• Our aim is just to kill the mussels, not cook them, this is because we will cook them afterwards once we start with the escabeche. In order to this, we place them in boiling salt water (30% salt – their same medium of life, this way they don’t loose any taste) for 6-8 seconds. And then directly to an inverted ice bath (they should not touch the water so we can keep the juice).
• Go through the inside of the shell with a very sharp and thin knife, and cut the muscle once you reach it. You will see the mussel is almost the same size of the shell, much much bigger than when one does steaming preparations.
• Usually when we cook them for longer, the shell opens on its own because the mussel stops contracting.
• KEEP THE WATER –> we use it for the same escabeche or for other creative preparations we can think of. Even a leche de tigre for a cebiche. It is very tasty!!
• If you want to keep them for a day or two, keep them on their same water with some oil on top so they don’t oxidize and always at a very low temperature to keep the cold chain going.

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We know as a basic principle that what this technique does is to cook food faster and in a more efficient way. But why is it faster?

In cities where there’s higher altitudes, such as Cuzco for example which is at 3,800 metres over the sea, there’s a lower pressure and so, water boils at lower temperatures (91ºC). Well, with a pressure cooker, what is accomplished is the opposite. The temperature at which water boils is higher due to a high pressure being applied. Hence, food is cooked at a faster rate.

A pressure cooker is a special pot that seals tightly and traps hot steam to build the pressure and temperature. Food is heated above boiling point, at temperatures around 120ºC/250ºF. This would be equivalent to boiling water with an opened pot at 5,800 metres below sea level. Recent designs regulate now even better the pressure and work better thna those that have a “weight regulator”, and they also assure that the pot won’t reach unsafe pressures.

So what do we normally cook in a pressure cooker?

It is especially useful for cooking dishes that otherwise would take a really long time to cook such as beans, meat stocks, stews of tough meats. It is also used to sterilise home-canned preparations such as marmalades, pickled food, etc. This is one of my favourite uses, since you know I love to make everything from scratch! At these high temperatures, all of the spores of botulism bacteria that usually survive boiling (100ºC) are killed.

Things to take into account to when we cook in a pressure cooker.

1. Do not fill it more than about 2/3 full and add a little oil to suppress the foam that sometimes generates by boiling dry beans and grains. Excess liquid and foam can clog the pressure valve and create messy boil-overs and unsafe pressures.
2. Once it has reached its maximum pressure, reduce the heat to minimum. To keep the heat in a pressure cooker only very little heat is required. If you’re kitchen takes some time to lower the heat, it’s best that you take it out of the heat for about a minute or so.
3. Always check the time to avoid burning the food.
4. Once it’s done, reduce the pressure slowly to keep the food structure and prevent boilovers. If it cools to fast, the water can boil violently and this can blow apart beans and potatoes and force liquids outside. It’s best to turn off the heat and let the pressure go down by itself and naturally.

Thanks to Harold McGee and his Keys to Good Cooking book, where I took a lot of this notes!!

Let’s go to the how to:

  

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The soybean paste left from the process is called Okara or Biji and it is used a lot in vegetarian cooking as a meat suplemment since it has a lot of protein and fibre.

Okara or Biji

The next step is making my own Tofu. I have to go and buy the nigiri (coagulant) and maybe see if I can get a mould and in the next days I’m going ot make! But for now, home-made soy milk recipe.

I already made myself a strawberry smoothie for breakfast, delicious!! I hope you feel encouraged to do it, it is a lot of fun and one of the best rewards it that it has no preservants or anything, it’s fresh home-made milk

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