Mussels

If you have acess to fresh mussels, hurry up and go buy at least a kilo: this recipe is so easy and so tasty that it's almost unfair. We are talking about mussels Valencia style. If you visit Valencia and taste these mussels, you are most likely to eat clotxinas, a smallish version of the regular mussel that lives in the Mediterranean sea. In any event, the recipes you get if you google "mejillones a la Valenciana" seem a bit off to us. Please don't add any salt, and fry the garlic in a bit of olive oil before adding the mussels and the lemon.

Proceed as follows: scrub the mussels clean with the help of a knife and get rid of the beard: just pull it out in a swift movement. Leave them inside the fridge for a couple of hours in bowl with clean water and about a tablespoon of salt . The idea is to help the mussels get rid of any sand they have inside the shells, but nowadays this is not as important as it was in the past because of the depuration process all shellfish has to undergo. When you're ready to start cooking, get a heavy pan, we recommend a 26 cm Le Creuset, and cover its bottom with a slug of olive oil. Fry 3 cloves of coarsely chopped garlic until golden. Then add a quartered lemon and the mussels. Turn the heat to medium high and cover the pan. Shake the pot now and then to help the shellfish move around. Once all the mussels have opened, turn of the heat. It's very important not to overcook as most of the pleasure comes from the texture of the mussels, and that is gone if they are overcooked and dried out.

Add coarsely chopped parley, squeeze the lemon quarters a bit, and serve with a lemony crisp white wine and slices of crusty bread. Use the shells to scoop out the sauce, it's devine.

We were so eager to eat it that we forgot to take a picture. These are the leftovers. Ah, the wine was a txakoli, a simple fresh white wine from the basque country...