MUSSELS WITH RICE (for Clean Monday)

If it's mussels and rice for dinner, it must be Clean Monday. Why? Because Lent is here! For Greeks, the first day of Great Lent is called Clean Monday. It's a day of fasting after a long weekend of celebrating Carnival. Clean Monday begins the forty days of fasting and repentance that lead to Easter Sunday. In Greece, it's a public holiday. Clean Monday is a day of personal reflection and a day of forgiveness and cleansing of one's conscience. It ushers in "Clean Week," when it's customary to go to confession and clean the house, sort of a spring cleaning of the soul and its surroundings. Since Clean Monday is a holiday, people plan outdoor excursions. Paper kites are flown as a way of celebrating the coming of spring.

 

These two pages are from my precious first-grade reader. Here, a little boy name Riga is flying his kite which as he says went as high as the clouds, higher than any of the others. Then Riga gets a congratulatory hug from his yiayia (his granny). The cat, whose name is Snow, wants some hugs as well. This reader, long out of use scholastically, was reissued sometime around the year 2000, as a memento for all of us grown-up kids who were suffering from nostalgia. And believe me, that's what the skies looked like at the beginning of Lent during our childhood! They were filled with kites, and on the streets, little children and their parents, kites in hand, were walking towards open areas to let the kites go, go, fly up high! Then, home for a lenten meal with lagana, horta, tarama, olives, and most likely mussels and rice. 

On Clean Monday, food is of the fasting type. Meat, dairy products, and eggs are forbidden. Alcohol is forbidden. Any type of fish with bones is not allowed to be eaten because bony fish contain blood. Shellfish are consumed, as well as a type of unleavened flatbread called a lagana. I say unleavened, that's the traditional rendition, however, modern times have ushered in the use of a small amount of yeast. 

A popular dish to have for dinner on Clean Monday is mussels and rice. And it's really delicious: Mussels and a seafood broth are incorporated into the making of rice pilaf. Yum! 

A note on my personal choice when buying mussels: 

There are two alternatives. One is to buy the live, farm-raised mussels, clean them (rinse, scrub, rinse, scrub, rinse, rinse), and cook them, hoping that you don't have too much waste. When buying fresh mussels, always buy more than you think you will need. Some will be open and must be discarded. Others will not open during cooking. Discard. Others will be so small that you will need a magnifying glass to find the mussel meat. Once fresh mussels are cooked, you'll have to remove the meat from the shells, discard a small mountain of shells, and scrub down kitchen counters, range counters, kitchen sinks, and kitchen floors ... If you're fine with that, then go ahead, purchase the fresh mussels.

For convenience at home, sometimes I choose the mussel meat that is available in the frozen seafood section of the market. Forgive me world, I buy frozen mussels, and I admit it. Okay? Okay. 

Well ... I buy fresh mussels as well. Here, they are steaming in a Dutch oven along with some aromatics. They should be covered while steaming. I removed the lid only to take the photo. Fresh or frozen, mussels come from the same source. 

Another note I want to post is to explain that buying farm-raised fresh mussels is preferable to buying the wild variety. Wild mussels will come filled with sand and grit. They will need lots of cleaning and water changes before they are ready to cook. Farmed mussels are grown on ropes that are attached to poles drilled into the ocean floor. This method of growing mussels is safe and beneficial for the environment; also, since these mussels don't get close to any sand, they are considerably cleaner than the wild ones. Mussels are filter feeders, and as they grow on their ropes, they feast on a natural diet of algae, not on that artificial diet of pellets given to other farm-raised seafood. Here are some pictures of mussel culture:

 sustainable aquaculture; a diagram of how mussels are farmed.

The mussel culture ropes are seen in the background; they make an important habitat for fish. 

Below, is my "mussel pilaf" recipe for Clean Monday. 

If you choose to use fresh mussels, count on purchasing four pounds of shell-on mussels. Wash your fresh mussels very, very well, pull out any beards present, discard any opened mussels, and cook the rest for five to six minutes in boiling water to cover. To this water, along with the mussels, add some aromatics: a cut-up lemon, a cut-up lime, an onion, some garlic cloves, some peppercorns, and some bay leaves. Once the mussels are cooked, drain, discarding the cooking liquid. Also, discard any unopened mussels, remove the mussel meat from the rest of the shells and proceed with the recipe. You may want to save some mussel shells for decoration.

Ingredients: 

The mussel meat that has been cooked. It will most likely wind up being somewhere around 16 ounces / 500 grams of mussel meat  
6 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large onion, chopped 
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 sweet Italian frying pepper, chopped

3 scallions, sliced thinly, use the white and light green parts only
2 cups long-grain rice
3 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons chopped dill

salt and pepper to taste

a sprig of thyme

the juice of one lemon

one tomato, skin removed, tomato cut into small pieces

Sliced lemons 

vegetable broth, clam juice, and water, any combination that's preferred. The liquid should equal 4 cups 



Directions:

For the rice and the assembly:

1. In a Duch oven, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the onions and sweet pepper. Sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for one minute.
2. Add the rice and cook, stirring, for about two minutes. Season with a little salt and pepper.
3. Pour the four cups of liquid and the rest of the oil (3 tablespoons) over the rice. Add the tomato, thyme, and lemon juice. 
4. Simmer for 20 minutes until the rice is soft and the liquid has been absorbed.
5. About five minutes before the rice is done, add the parsley, dill, and scallions. Correct the seasonings if needed. Mix well, cover, and continue cooking until done.
6. Remove the thyme sprig then carefully fold the mussels into the rice. 
7. Turn off the heat. Cover the pan with two paper towels and place the lid on top of the towels. Leave the pan on the stove (with the heat off) for 5 to 10 minutes. This will make the rice fluffier because the paper will absorb steam. Discard the paper towels and serve the pilaf. Offer lemon slices, as some people might want to squeeze more lemon juice onto their mussels.