Mussels in Saffron Chorizo Broth

Are there any recipes that you absolutely love, but would never try at home?  For me, that was this recipe.  I love the combination of chorizo and mussels, but have never felt comfortable cooking mussels.  The first thing I thought when coming to Martha's Vineyard during COVID and knowing that we would be doing a lot of cooking was that I was going to have to try making mussels and chorizo.  I found this amazing recipe on Cooking with Cocktail Rings and it combined so many great ingredients, I knew I had to try it.

I learned a lot while making this recipe and while it wasn't exactly easy, it was absolutely to die for.  Everyone at the table said they were the best mussels they'd ever eaten and we even saved some of the leftover broth because we couldn't bear to throw it out.  We picked up fresh mussels from the fish market up the road that afternoon and put them in the fridge until ready to prep dinner.  When I opened the bag, I noticed that quite a few of them were open, which I thought was not a good sign.  I quickly consulted Google and learned that if you lightly tap the mussels and they close up, they're still alive and good to eat.  If they don't close, you should discard them because they're dead.  So I went tapping away at the mussels, and low and behold they closed up instantly.  It was kind of a fun thing to do, watching them close as you tap away at them, but there were quite a few open ones, so I decided to proceed with the recipe.  I then found out that if you soak them in cold water, they'll close up right away too.  So as I went through cleaning the mussels (no easy feat, it took us about 30-45 minutes), I tapped away at any open ones and ran them under cold water to see if they would close.  There were a couple that still didn't close up, so we discarded them, but most of them closed right up with a little effort.

Moving on to what I'm sure you really want to hear about - the flavor of this dish.  There are so many great ingredients and trust me, they all come together beautifully to create a rich, creamy, spicy broth that is to die for.  I could literally eat this recipe every day (if someone else would prep it for me of course!) and not get sick of it.  The saffron and chorizo bring so much depth of flavor to the dish it's honestly a little hard to even put into words.  We had a bit of an interesting time trying to find fish stock, so we ended up getting clam stock from the fish market that had chunks of clam in it (which we weren't mad about) and there was a great ratio of mussels to broth to fun stuff like chorizo, clams and leeks.  I think it turned out to be a blessing in disguise that we got the fish market clam stock because it brought such a great briny, oceanic flavor to the dish plus the bonus of clams.  While the prep work for this recipe was a lot to handle (between cleaning the mussels and leisurely dicing all the ingredients, it took me about an hour and a half to prep) it was 100% worth it and I would do it all again.  Without further ado, here's the recipe.  Oh, and it says that it serves 4, but it was so good that the 3 of us cleaned it up with an entire baguette.

Total Time: 45-50 minutes

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

2 pounds mussels, cleaned

1/4 cup flour

3 tbs olive oil

3/4 cup chorizo

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 medium leek, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 roma tomato, finely diced

1/4 tsp saffron, crumbled

3 cups fish stock

1 cup dry white wine

1 tbs minced shallots

1/2 cup heavy cream*

1 tsp chopped thyme

Salt & Pepper to taste

*we substituted coconut cream to make the recipe dairy free

Instructions:

1. Soak the mussels in a large bowl of cold water and flour.
2. In a large pot over medium heat, add the olive oil, chorizo, leeks and onion.  Cook, stirring occasionally about 6-8 minutes until chorizo is cooked through and onions are tender.
3. Add the garlic, diced tomato and saffron and cook until fragrant, about 4 minutes.
4. Add the fish stock and bring to a boil.  Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. While the broth is simmering, combine the wine and shallots in another large pot and bring to a boil.  Rinse and drain the mussels and then add to the pot with the wine mixture.  Cover and cook over high heat for about 5 minutes, until the mussels open.
6. Strain the cooking liquid into a large bowl and add to the chorizo mixture.  Cover the mussels and set them aside.
7. When the broth is done simmering, turn the heat up to medium and whisk in the heavy cream and thyme.  Salt and pepper to taste. 
8. Serve immediately with a side of crusty bread to soak up the sauce.

It's a little more clean up work, but I love to get everything chopped and ready to go before I start cooking.  This way, all I have to do is read through the recipe and pour the ingredients from the bowl when it's time.  This leads to a low-stress cooking environment, which is one I thrive in.  Oh, and if you're worried about the amount of dishes you'll have at the end, don't worry.  There's time while the pots are simmering to go through and clean the bowls.  Again, the clean-as-you-go method really works for me because at the end of a delicious meal, the last thing you want to do is have to clean a ton of dirty dishes.

How beautiful are those colors?  Really, the perfect combination of flavors and textures with the creamy broth, soft leeks and crispy bread to soak it all up.  This recipe gets an 11/10 in my book and I wouldn't change a thing about it.