Mussels Provencal (Steamed Mussels in a White Wine Sauce)

Hi there, I am Chef Jean-Pierre and today we are making Massol Provencal. Stay tuned. Love preparing Massol. In fact, we're gonna do Massol Provencal. We're gonna put some tomatoes and garlic in there. Wait until you see how easy it is to do. The only way to do it is the way I'm gonna show you how to do it. The only way to cook a Massol is to steam one. We're gonna put a little bit of extra virgin olive oil in there and we're gonna put a little bit of onion and we're gonna sweat the onion, okay? While the onion is sweating, let's talk a little bit about muscles. Now, you can see this muscle is open right here. Now, does that mean that this muscle is dead? No, it doesn't. It means that then she's sleeping. She or he, I don't know. She's sleeping with her mouth open. Really, I'm telling you, that's what happened. Now look, we're gonna wake her up. Okay, wake up. Wake up. Look, look, look, look. Look what happened. I hope you can see it. Wake up. Look, look, look. She's closing. She's like, leave me alone. I gotta go back to sleep. Look, look at it. That's it. Look, see? Muscle is closed. That's what happened. When they relax, they kind of open up a little bit and it's okay. They sleep with their mouth open, you know? And the minute you make some noise, boom, they close right away because they're alive. You want them to be alive. So you check around and if you see an open one, wake her up and you may want to squeeze them like that. That'll wake them up even faster than banging on it. And if they don't close right away, put them aside and see. Maybe they have a tough time waking up. And we got the onion going out here now. Okay, now we're gonna put some tomatoes, little chopped tomatoes. You can put some fresh herbs in there like fresh thyme, fresh oregano. You can put a bit of parsley in there. And you can also put a little garlic. If you're cooking for me, go right ahead. Put extra garlic, okay? And then we're gonna mix all that up. Oh my goodness, if you could smell. This is unbelievable. And now we're gonna put some wine in there. Now do me a favor. If you cook some wine. Muscles love good wine. They don't like cheap wine. Okay, give them good wine and measure very carefully. You know what? If there is extra sauce, that's okay. And if there's extra wine, that's perfectly fine also, all right? Now we're gonna get the wine hot. So far so good, right? I haven't done anything complicated. Now we're gonna take the mussels and we're gonna put them right in here. And now the other secret of cooking mussels, folks, is to close it immediately. What's gonna happen is the wine is gonna get very hot and the mussels are gonna say, man, it's really hot in here. What's going on? And they're gonna open up. And the minute they open, the last thing they do is they go, and they soak up this marvelous wine with garlic and parsley. And now they really taste good. And the minute they open, you have to stop cooking immediately, otherwise they get rubbery. The minute you can see the steam coming out of the pot, you know that it's really, really hot in there. So you know, they're opening right now. They don't wait that long. They're opening right now. And look, look, look, look, look, look, look. Now that's that point. We wanna check it around. We don't wanna open it up until we see the steam coming out of the pot. And let's look. You know what? That's it. They are ready, folks. We do not wanna overcook them. Oh, baby. Now let me show you. Oh, this is hot. I wanna show you a plump mussel. This is what I mean by a plump mussel. Look at this, baby. Oh my goodness. Is that gorgeous or what? They are so plump. They're so delicious. Oh, mm. Oh, mm. Oh, I love mussels, especially when they have onion and garlic and tomatoes in there and good wine. Oh, that's why you wanna cook with good wine. They drank it all. I can taste the wine in there. Oh, yes. I definitely, I can taste the wine. Mm. Let's put them on a plate now. At this point, you wanna take your time to organize them on a plate, or you just wanna put them on a plate. Just simple. What I normally do is just take the time to fix them a little bit. But right now, I'm just gonna put them quick. So I show you. You can certainly take the time to make them look really pretty in the plates. We can serve them like that, or you can take them all out of the shell, take that broth right there, put a little bit of cream, and you have a mussel bisque that is unbelievable. Try this recipe. I know you're gonna love it.