Mussels: Cleaning and Purging
Nowadays nearly all mussels you buy at your fishmonger or supermarket are commercially farmed. They are cultivated on ropes that are attached to buoys and then lowered into the sea or wodden poles. Normally they are quite clean inside, but occasionally you might bite on a mussel with some sand in it. That's an unpleasant experience and can spoil your entire meal. So you must clean and purge the mussels before preparing any mussel dish.
Just follow these simple steps:
- Raw Mussels are sold live. Make sure the shells are unbroken and closed and have a faint smell of sea and not of fish.
- Place the mussels in plenty of cold fresh water right away so they stay closed. Dead mussels will not close and need to be discarded.
- Scrub the shells and remove any barnacles as well as the black fibrous "beard". Discard mussels with shells.
- Purge the mussels of sand and debris inside their digestive tracks. Here is an age old method: Put the mussels in a container with cold water and add 1/2 cup of cornmeal. Let it stand for 1 hour. The mussels will eat the cornmeal and expel any sand or grit. Run them under water again to remove all sand and cornmeal at the end.