Franny's by Melissa Clark

Author:Melissa Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Artisan
Published: 2013-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Mussels with White Beans and Finocchiona

As Andrew and I were discussing recipes for this chapter, we came to this dish and I declared, “This is a great one-pot meal!” Though Andrew countered with “Who ever actually uses one pot? Have I ever used only one pot?,” I still maintain that this could be prepared, start to finish, in a single big pot—if you’ve got the beans already cooked.

This serves six as an appetizer, but augmented by a large, leafy green salad and some crusty bread, this hearty, stew-like dish would make a lovely main course for four. Mussels are wonderful to cook with, as their liquor is almost a ready-made sauce. And since fennel, with all its herbaceous sweetness, is a delicious companion for mussels, we take it all the way, using finocchiona (a fennel-flavored salami) along with fennel seeds and a generous pour of Strega or Pernod.

Serves 4 to 6

¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil

6 ounces finocchiona (cured fennel sausage), removed from the casing and cut into 1-by-½-inch-thick batons (1½ cups)

12 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

¾ teaspoon fennel seed

¾ teaspoon chili flakes

¼ cup Strega or Pernod

2 cups chopped canned San Marzano tomatoes

1½ cups dry white wine

3½ cups cooked Controne or cannellini beans with their cooking liquid

2 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded

1 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Toasted crusty bread for serving

In a large Dutch oven, heat 6 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and garlic and let them brown for a minute or two. Stir in the fennel seeds and chili flakes and cook until fragrant. Stir in the Strega and tomatoes and simmer until most of the liquid cooks off. Add the white wine and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the beans, with their cooking liquid, and bring to a boil. Add the mussels, cover, and cook until they have opened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the parsley. Ladle the mussel mixture into individual serving dishes and drizzle each with a tablespoon of olive oil. Serve with toasted bread.

Andrew’s Note: Cleaning mussels doesn’t have to be a chore, and the smaller Bouchot variety are particularly easy, as their “beards” are pretty insignificant. At Franny’s, we speed through pounds and pounds of mussels by simply scrubbing the beards off with a very coarse sponge (I use the thin, green abrasive sponges made by 3M). Be sure to scrub the mussels just before you cook them—they’ll die pretty quickly once their beards are removed.

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