Recipe for rice with seafood mussels. Mussels with rice. Features of cooking mussels in rice

Regular rice is largely tasteless. It is rare that boiled rice is eaten just like that, without anything. However, the exception is all kinds of exhausting diets. Boiled rice can easily be given a unique taste by adding a tasty, healthy and low-calorie sauce to the dish, for example, preparing mussels with rice. Made from frozen mussels with lots of tomatoes, herbs, green onions and peppers.

I found the basis for the sauce recipe in a book with recipes for Mexican cuisine. A marvelous country, occupying a narrow part of the North American continent, bordered on the north by the United States, and on the south by Guatemala, washed by the waters of two oceans. Ancient cultures have left a deep mark on the history of Mexico, including on the culinary traditions of this country. Actually, modern Mexican cuisine is a combination of the culinary traditions of the Aztecs. Mayans, Spaniards and others. The hallmark of Mexican cuisine is chili pepper; most Mexican dishes are impossible without it.

In addition to the usual products - corn, potatoes, fruits, etc., fish and seafood are widely used in Mexican cuisine. Very often, fresh seafood is cooked with sauces - spicy and not very spicy, usually stewed with a lot of tomatoes, herbs, and “chili”. Such snacks are even used for...

Chili peppers are generally a separate issue; I don’t know of any cuisine in the world where hot peppers are used so variedly and widely, and peppers are distinguished with very different spiciness: from wild-fiery to almost “dessert”.

I really like mildly spicy sauces for rice made from seafood or mussels. Today we decided to try cooking mussels with rice - the recipe calls for a little spiciness, which is very important for our delicate taste.

Mussels with rice. Step by step recipe

Ingredients (2 servings)

Rice 200 gr
Mussels 300 g
Tomatoes 3-4 pcs
Sweet pepper 2 pcs
Green onions 2-3 pcs
Garlic 3-4 cloves
Olive oil 3-4 tbsp. l.
Parsley 1-2 sprigs
Chili pepper 1 pc.
Spices: salt, black pepper, nutmeg, curry taste

Before preparing the mussel sauce, you need to prepare a side dish - boiled rice. It is better to take round rice with low or medium stickiness. The Egyptian Camolino variety is ideal. However, you can cook other rice. We tried cooking the parboyd variety and adding mussel sauce - the mussels with rice turned out very well.
Ingredients: mussels and vegetables
Rinse the rice well. Bring water to a boil in a saucepan. The amount of water is twice as much as rice in volume. Add a couple of pinches of salt and curry mixture to boiling water using the tip of a knife. Literally a little bit. The curry will turn the rice a beautiful yellow color. You can add turmeric or saffron. Cook the rice at a very low simmer, covered, until all the liquid is absorbed by the rice. This is 18-20 minutes. Then remove the saucepan with rice from the heat and leave so that the rice “passes” with steam. Then it will become exceptionally tasty and homogeneous.
Heat olive oil in a deep frying pan and fry 1-2 crushed garlic cloves. Leave some of the garlic for further cooking. After frying the garlic, remove it from the oil and discard it.
Many people will ask, why flavor olive oil if the recipe uses garlic anyway? The fact is that olive oil has a specific aroma and taste. By the way, I don't like it though... maybe I'm used to sunflower oil. And roasting garlic, firstly, allows you to change the aroma, making it very subtle. Products fried in this oil are imbued with this aroma. Secondly, during frying the oil will be heated, and the mussels with rice will not smell like oil.
Sweet pepper - red or any, peel and cut into small pieces. The size is like a penny coin. There is no need for a larger one, because... We are making a sauce rather than sautéing vegetables. Fry the chopped peppers in oil until golden brown. It is better to stir the pepper often and do not cover the pan with a lid.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and remove the skin. Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds using a spoon. Coarsely chop the tomato pulp.
Remove seeds from hot peppers and finely chop. If it happens that you don’t have “chili”, you can get by with ground “chili”, adding it at your discretion.
Add chopped tomatoes and chilies to the fried sweet peppers. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add ground nutmeg - on the tip of a knife, or more.
Simmer everything under the lid until the tomato pulp softens. It is also worth stirring periodically. No additional liquid is added; the vegetables will release enough juice. But, if you want, you can add a little dry white wine, it won’t hurt and will only improve the taste.
After 10-15 minutes, finely grate 1-2 cloves of garlic and finely chop the green onion. Add onion and garlic to the sauce, stir, and simmer covered over low heat for 10 minutes.
Add frozen mussels to the sauce. They do not need to be defrosted, but given that mussels are usually artificially grown, it is better to first fill them with water and bring to a boil, then rinse.
Simmer the mussel sauce from the point of boiling for 5 minutes. Then open the lid and simmer until the excess moisture evaporates. If no liquid was added, the moisture will evaporate in a few minutes and the mussel sauce will become quite thick.

Chili peppers are generally a separate issue; I don’t know of any cuisine in the world where hot peppers are used so variedly and widely, and peppers are distinguished with very different spiciness: from wild-fiery to almost “dessert”.

Mussels with rice. Step by step recipe

Ingredients (2 servings)

Rice 200 gr
Mussels 300 g
Tomatoes 3-4 pcs
Sweet pepper 2 pcs
Green onions 2-3 pcs
Garlic 3-4 cloves
Olive oil 3-4 tbsp. l.
Parsley 1-2 sprigs
Chili pepper 1 pc.
Spices: salt, black pepper, nutmeg, curry taste

Before preparing the mussel sauce, you need to prepare a side dish - boiled rice. It is better to take round rice with low or medium stickiness. The Egyptian Camolino variety is ideal. However, you can cook other rice. We tried cooking the parboyd variety and adding mussel sauce - the mussels with rice turned out very well.
Ingredients: mussels and vegetables
Rinse the rice well. Bring water to a boil in a saucepan. The amount of water is twice as much as rice in volume. Add a couple of pinches of salt and curry mixture to boiling water using the tip of a knife. Literally a little bit. The curry will turn the rice a beautiful yellow color. You can add turmeric or saffron. Cook the rice at a very low simmer, covered, until all the liquid is absorbed by the rice. This is 18-20 minutes. Then remove the saucepan with rice from the heat and leave so that the rice “passes” with steam. Then it will become exceptionally tasty and homogeneous.
Heat olive oil in a deep frying pan and fry 1-2 crushed garlic cloves. Leave some of the garlic for further cooking. After frying the garlic, remove it from the oil and discard it.
Many people will ask, why flavor olive oil if the recipe uses garlic anyway? The fact is that olive oil has a specific aroma and taste. By the way, I don't like it though... maybe I'm used to sunflower oil. And roasting garlic, firstly, allows you to change the aroma, making it very subtle. Products fried in this oil are imbued with this aroma. Secondly, during frying the oil will be heated, and the mussels with rice will not smell like oil.
Sweet pepper - red or any, peel and cut into small pieces. The size is like a penny coin. There is no need for a larger one, because... We are making a sauce rather than sautéing vegetables. Fry the chopped peppers in oil until golden brown. It is better to stir the pepper often and do not cover the pan with a lid.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and remove the skin. Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the seeds using a spoon. Coarsely chop the tomato pulp.
Remove seeds from hot peppers and finely chop. If it happens that you don’t have “chili”, you can get by with ground “chili”, adding it at your discretion.
Add chopped tomatoes and chilies to the fried sweet peppers. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add ground nutmeg - on the tip of a knife, or more.
Simmer everything under the lid until the tomato pulp softens. It is also worth stirring periodically. No additional liquid is added; the vegetables will release enough juice. But, if you want, you can add a little dry white wine, it won’t hurt and will only improve the taste.
After 10-15 minutes, finely grate 1-2 cloves of garlic and finely chop the green onion. Add onion and garlic to the sauce, stir, and simmer covered over low heat for 10 minutes.
Add frozen mussels to the sauce. They do not need to be defrosted, but given that mussels are usually artificially grown, it is better to first fill them with water and bring to a boil, then rinse.
Simmer the mussel sauce from the point of boiling for 5 minutes. Then open the lid and simmer until the excess moisture evaporates. If no liquid was added, the moisture will evaporate in a few minutes and the mussel sauce will become quite thick.

Fried rice with seafood, and in our case with shrimp and mussels, is a light, satisfying and very balanced dish with a rich taste and pleasant aroma of seafood and vegetables. When we prepare such dishes, warm memories of Asian cuisine and travel to these wonderful countries come to mind. We advise you to prepare this dish, both on a regular weekday and for a holiday table. Your guests will be very pleased.

Ingredients:
Rice - 400 g.
Shrimp - 20 pcs. royal or more small ones
Mussels - 200 g.
Garlic - 4 cloves
Carrots - 1 pc.
Red bell pepper - 1 pc.
Green onions - 3 pcs.
Parsley - small bunch
Soy sauce - 40-50 ml
Ground black pepper
Salt
Vegetable oil
Chili pepper - optional

We prepared a non-spicy dish so that the children could eat with us. If you want to add some spice to the dish, add finely chopped chili pepper when frying carrots with red pepper.

Step-by-step recipe for fried rice with shrimp and mussels

Rinse long grain rice well under water and add cold water in a ratio of one part rice and two parts water. Add salt and cook until tender over low heat, covered, when the water is completely absorbed by the rice. Typically the cooking time for rice is about 20 minutes. Do not under any circumstances overcook the rice, it should be crumbly, it is better to undercook it a little. To do this, take a little less water than normal.

Defrost the shrimp: we washed the shrimp and put it on low heat, heated it a little and drained the water. Then you need to peel the scales from the shrimp. If desired, you can leave the tails, as is often done in restaurants. We removed the tails, because... prepared for a family dinner.

You can defrost mussels in the same way as shrimp. Or just take them out of the freezer in advance and defrost them at room temperature.

Finely chop the garlic with a knife.

Grate the carrots in Korean style. Or cut into thin strips with a knife.

Cut red bell pepper into thin strips

Finely chop the green onion with a knife

Finely chop the parsley (leaves) with a knife.

Over medium heat in a wok pan without oil, fry the mussels with garlic until excess moisture evaporates, for 1-2 minutes.

Add vegetable oil and increase heat to high. Then add shrimp. Spice up. Stir-fry for 3-4 minutes. Then remove the seafood with garlic from the pan into a separate bowl.

Add vegetable oil in a small amount to the same wok pan. Heat the oil and fry the carrots over high heat for 2-3 minutes. Then add red bell pepper. Cook for another 2 minutes.

Add cooked rice to carrots and peppers, pepper. Stir-fry for about 3 minutes over high heat.

Add green onions and parsley, as well as soy sauce. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes over high heat. Add seafood and fry for about 2 minutes. Then remove from heat and mix well.

Fried rice with shrimp and mussels is ready. Bon appetit!

Pilaf with mussels

If you have mussels and are thinking about cooking with them, you can very easily make mussel paella, which some also call mussel pilaf. The dish turns out to be satisfying, with exciting and tender pieces of mussel meat - salty-sweet... the rice is saturated with their sea aroma and spicy notes of garlic and onions. And hot peppers light up little hot fireworks in your mouth. This is delicious.

There are many ways to prepare rice with mussels, they depend on where you are now (at home or at sea by the fire), whether the shells are closed or whether you bought mussels in half shells, or even peeled (mussel meat). A very simple recipe for stewing rice with mussels is suitable for home; the dish turns out tasty, satisfying, and pleases the eye with its exotic appearance (if you have mussels still in their shells).

Ingredients for rice with mussels

for 1 frying pan(approximately 3 servings)

Rice (preferably round grain, starchy) – 1 cup;

Garlic – 2-4 cloves;

Onion – 1 head;

Hot chili pepper - 1/3 pod or less;

Mussels – 12-16 pieces (as many as you have).

Vegetable oil for frying;

Salt, herbs (I took dried basil - a pinch).

How to cook rice with mussels

Soak the rice in cool water for half an hour or longer. Thaw the mussels.

While the rice is stewing, the mussels are defrosting

Heat a frying pan with oil (a layer of about 1 cm), fry the onion (cut into small pieces or thin half rings). After a minute, add garlic (cut into slices) and finely chopped pepper.

Fry garlic, onion and chili pepper

As soon as the onions and garlic give off the first intoxicating smell, add pre-soaked rice (drain the water first). Fry the rice for 3 minutes, stirring. Then add water (so that it slightly covers the rice) and simmer over low heat until almost done. Add water to the pan as needed: as soon as the rice has absorbed everything, but is not yet ready, add another half glass. At this main stage of cooking, I do not stir the rice.

Fry rice in a frying pan with garlic, onions and pepper

When the rice is almost cooked (slightly hard deep inside the grain), place mussels in the hot, wet rice, sprinkle with herbs and simmer until done (another 5-7 minutes). Just as the excess water will evaporate, the mussels will be ready.

Sprinkle mussels and rice with herbs

Features of cooking mussels in rice

How else can you cook rice in mussels?

You can open the mussel - methods, fill the free space of the shell with pre-soaked rice. Then close the mussel and wrap it with white cotton thread (do not use colored threads, otherwise we will end up with colored rice, like Bridget Jones's blue soup).

Place the stuffed shells in a pan in layers, add water and simmer over low heat until the rice is cooked. 10-12 minutes.

You don’t have to bother with opening and tying the shells, but simply mix the shells with the rice and put the porridge on the fire, then the flaps will open during the cooking process, and the rice will penetrate into all the right places on its own.

Mussels in spoons swim in the sea of rice

Other recipes with mussels

You can cook soup with mussels, add them to fried potatoes, or make some delicious pasta sauce with them. Mussels can be used like fish or squid, adding them to the same dishes. Mussel meat is also very tasty in such recipes.

Recently, many modern housewives prefer to prepare delicious dishes using seafood. Mussel dishes with rice are especially popular. They are a kind of sea pilaf. In addition, seafood is considered very healthy, and therefore mussels can be an excellent solution for diversifying your diet. Next, we’ll take a closer look at an interesting recipe for cooking mussels with rice, advice from professional chefs, and learn how to choose the right seafood.

Quality matters

You should choose seafood with great responsibility, giving preference exclusively to specialized points of sale.

This is very important, because if you purchase a low-quality seafood product, you can easily get poisoned by it.

It is best to cook fresh mussels, however, this is not always possible, since they are more expensive and difficult to find on the open market. When purchasing frozen mussels, it is very important to ensure that there is no ice on them. If there is a lot of it, and even there is frost, then, as a rule, this indicates that the product has been defrosted and frozen several times, which means it is no longer suitable for consumption.

When choosing clams in shells, it is very important that they are all tightly closed. The slightest noticeable gap indicates that these shellfish are not worth purchasing. It is also worth paying attention to the weight of the mussels. They should not be too light in the shell, as this may mean the clam is gone. And they should not be excessively heavy, as this is evidence of copious amounts of water getting into them.

In general, by following these recommendations, it is quite possible to purchase a quality product for home preparation. It is worth noting that when purchasing fresh shellfish, it is very important to pay attention to their smell. It should under no circumstances be unpleasant. Fresh mussels smell like the sea.

Healthy dish

Rice with mussels in a frying pan. We use as ingredients:

long grain rice – 250-300 grams;
2 onions;
2 carrots;
peeled mussels - about 300 grams;
salt, pepper and other spices can be added to taste.

This recipe takes an hour on average. The dish is designed for four people. To prepare, follow the step-by-step instructions.

At the first stage, you need to select and wash the rice thoroughly. Then fill it with water, add salt and boil for 15-20 minutes (it should not be completely cooked). The amount of water should be calculated as follows: 1 glass of rice to 1 glass of water.
Onions and carrots should be peeled. Finely chop the onion and grate the carrots or cut into small cubes.
Next, you should fry the onion and add carrots to it, you get a kind of frying. After the onions and carrots are thoroughly fried (about five minutes), you need to add defrosted mussels to them. After they begin to release juice, you need to pour pre-boiled rice into the frying pan. Mix everything well and add spices to taste.
At the last stage, you need to pour a little water into the pan, cover everything with a lid and leave to steam for 15 minutes. The dish is ready.

You can serve delicious seafood pilaf immediately after cooking.

As decoration, you can use sprigs of fresh herbs and lemon slices. This dish will also go well with freshly chopped vegetables.

You will learn more about how to cook pilaf with rice and mussels in the following video.

To prepare a delicious rice dish with seafood, It is recommended to listen to the advice of professional chefs.

When cooking rice, it is very important not to cook it completely, much less overcook it. Here everything is the same as with pasta, it is better to cook it “by the tooth”, that is, al dente. Undercooked rice will be cooked later during the process of steaming or stewing, so there is no need to worry.
To prepare an original dish, don’t be afraid to experiment. So, to add piquancy to rice with seafood, you can add curry seasoning during stewing. Or serve the finished dish with spicy tomato sauce. A creamy sauce that harmonizes perfectly with mussels can also be an excellent solution. Those who love experimenting can try cooking Turkish mussels stuffed with rice. Rice with vegetables, nuts and spices is placed directly into the shells. The dish turns out to be very exotic.
You can also cook rice with mussels in a slow cooker. This will take much less time. You can also add shrimp and squid to the dish. You will get a real sea cocktail with rice.
Very often, mussels are cooked in wine, which gives them an even better taste. The wine also goes well with seafood risotto.

To summarize, we can say that Seafood, including mussels, has always been valued for its excellent taste. Therefore, a dish prepared from them can be an excellent solution to complement not only a regular dinner, but also any holiday table.