I am stuffed!
What a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner. We had our traditional cheese fondue and dungeness crab, but I decided to add something else after I read the recipe in Cooking Light, Cider-braised clams. Well, the recipe is actually for cider-braised mussels with bacon, but we couldn't find mussels in Spokane, and, well, we used the bacon for breakfast.
3 bacon slices, cut into 1/3 inch pieces
2 cups thinly sliced leeks, about 1 large
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon cracked pepper
2 pounds medium mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1 (12-ounce) bottle of hard cider
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1. Cook bacon in a dutch oven over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, reserving 2 teaspoons drippings in pan. Crumble bacon; set aside. Add leek, salt and pepper to pan; saute 3 minutes or until tender. Add bacon, mussels, and cider; bring to a boil. Cover and cook 5 minutes or until mussels open; discard any unopened shells.
2. Place about 9 mussels into each of 4 shallow bowls. Ladle about 1/2 cup broth mixture into each bowl, and sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley. Yield 4 servings.
For what I did, replace "clams" every time you read mussels and instead of the bacon and drippings, I sauteed the leeks in olive oil in the dutch oven. The clams were amazing, and so easy to make. YUM!
Now to finish wrapping, then some reading, then sleeping to wake up to opening presents.
3 bacon slices, cut into 1/3 inch pieces
2 cups thinly sliced leeks, about 1 large
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon cracked pepper
2 pounds medium mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1 (12-ounce) bottle of hard cider
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1. Cook bacon in a dutch oven over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, reserving 2 teaspoons drippings in pan. Crumble bacon; set aside. Add leek, salt and pepper to pan; saute 3 minutes or until tender. Add bacon, mussels, and cider; bring to a boil. Cover and cook 5 minutes or until mussels open; discard any unopened shells.
2. Place about 9 mussels into each of 4 shallow bowls. Ladle about 1/2 cup broth mixture into each bowl, and sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley. Yield 4 servings.
For what I did, replace "clams" every time you read mussels and instead of the bacon and drippings, I sauteed the leeks in olive oil in the dutch oven. The clams were amazing, and so easy to make. YUM!
Now to finish wrapping, then some reading, then sleeping to wake up to opening presents.