French Fridays with Dorie: Mussels and Chorizo with Pasta

It's been a cold, windy and rainy week, so this French Fridays with Dorie Mussels with Chorizo slipped in just fine for a cozy Valentine's dinner at home. After dinner, we cuddled up on the couch to catch the second night of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Incredibly romantic, I know, but we had to cheer on the Newf, and other working group favorites, while polishing off a nice bottle of prosecco that somehow managed to survive Saturday's dinner party!

Used my lovely copper cataplana for sauteing the ingredients and steaming the mussels

Whole Foods carries a wonderful Spanish chorizo in a 1/2-pound link, and black mussels from Carlsbad Aquafarm. Since it was just the two of us, and Dorie's recipe serves 4, I cut all the quantities in half, using about 2 lbs. mussels, 1/4 lb. chorizo, half an onion, shallot, half a red bell pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, a few sprigs of thyme, and one 14.5-ounce can of tomatoes (I used Muir Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes). I substituted prosecco (about 1/2 cup), in place of dry white wine, since that's what we were drinking for the evening.

Once the ingredients are ready, the dish takes only about 15 minutes to prepare. First, you saute the bell pepper, onion, garlic, thyme, and salt and pepper for about 5 minutes; then you toss in the tomatoes and chorizo and saute for another 5 minutes; and then you add the mussels and wine, increase the heat to high, and cover and steam for another 5 minutes until the mussels have opened. The mussels can be served over pasta, or with hunks of crusty bread for sopping up the sauce. I had a half package of bucatini pasta, so I cooked and tossed that in, but we also had some bread.

This was very good, especially with the chorizo, but I didn't care so much for the canned tomatoes. Maybe a couple of fresh Romas would be better - it was just too tomato-y for me. John felt it needed a touch of red pepper flakes and squeeze of lemon.

Dorie has two other mussels recipes in the book, Curried Mussels and Moules Mariniere, both of which I am looking forward to trying in the cataplana! I love my cataplana.

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French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s newest book Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing. I highly recommend adding it to your cookbook collection if you haven't already!