spaghetti in pesto di olive con muscoli
spaghetti in black olive pesto with mussels
Italian regions and local dialects tend to use one of a few different words for mussels - ‘muscoli’ , ‘mitili’ and ‘cozze’. As I’ve eaten most of my fresh Italian mussels in Liguria, I’m going to call them muscoli, a name which can also be teaced back further than the Southern Italian cozze.
Muscoli is also more similar to the name given to this shellfish in other European languages, so in the spirit of trying to reunify Europe again, we’ll stick to that.
This is also one of my ‘pragmatic pasta’ recipes - you can use store-bought olive paste/tapinade and boil-in-the-bag mussels to create an amazing fish pasta in very little time.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
- chop and cook the sun-dreid tomatoes
- warm the pre-cooked mussels
- boil the pasta
- combine pesto and pasta
- add mussels
spaghetti in black olive pesto with mussels
INGREDIENTS
FOR FOUR PEOPLE
• handful of sun-dried tomatoes
• 250g boil-in-the-bag mussels
• 100g black olive tapinade
• fresh parsley to taste
• Salt, black pepper to taste
PASTA
400g (14oz) dry spaghetti
MANTECATURA
none, simply combine
METHOD
Chop or tear the sun-dred tomatoes into small piees and cook them gently in some EVO, crushed garlic and a splash of wine for a few minutes.
Boil two pans of water - one of the mussels and one for the pasta, then follow the packet instructions to heat the mussels as you boil the pasta.
When the pasta’s cooked, combine it in a pasta pan in the normal way for pesto (see the Technique section on page X), and then add the sun-dried tomatoes. Toss to combine.
Add the drained, piping hot mussels and toss again to combine.
Serve with pecorino, cayenne or black pepper and more parsely.
NUTRITION per serving
