How to store mussels

How to freeze correctly

Proper freezing will help extend the shelf life of mussels from two weeks to two months. For this purpose, it is necessary to perform several sequential actions:

1. Carefully open the shells and remove the clam meat.
2. Place the mussel meat in a plastic container designed for storing food. Cover with a little water.
3. Close with a tight and secure airtight lid.
4. Place in the freezer.

The storage period for frozen seafood depends on which temperature setting is used.

• -10-12 ° С - two weeks;
• -18 ° C and below - three weeks (in shells);
• -18 ° C and below - one to two months (shellfish meat without valves).

The shock freezing method allows you to extend the shelf life of shellfish up to four months. However, this result can only be achieved in an industrial environment with the help of special high-power freezing equipment. This method is used by companies that specialize in the sale of frozen seafood.

Frozen mussels in original packaging are stored for the period specified by the manufacturers. This product can be kept in the freezer only until the packaging is opened. It is impossible to re-freeze mollusks harvested by this method.

General information, pros and cons of business

More and more people are choosing fish and seafood over traditional red meat, which has a negative impact on health. Mussels contain a large amount of protein and a high concentration of vitamin B. Shellfish are also rich in zinc, iodine, manganese.

The popularization of Asian and Spanish cuisines, which often use shellfish, has also contributed to the increased demand for mussels. That is why their breeding can be called a promising business sector.

The advantages of this type of business include the following:

• no need to purchase fry - they are washed ashore in waves;
• no need to spend a lot of money on feed: shellfish grown in the sea take food from the water themselves, algae and plankton act as food;
• no need for significant labor and financial investments for keeping molluscs;
• continuity of production;
• the possibility of complete processing of products;
• the opportunity to get a lot of mussels at once, since they are fertile: in one season, an adult individual gives more than 10,000 eggs;
• the ability to sell finished products at a high price;
• high demand.

The disadvantages of this type of activity include the high cost of purchasing shellfish processing systems.

How to cook mussels in shells in tomato sauce with garlic?

Clams in tomato sauce are often served in Italian restaurants. But to cook them deliciously, you don't have to become a chef. You will learn all the secrets of cooking an appetizing dish at home right now.

Products:

• 1 kg of fresh mussels;
• 2 tbsp butter;
• 2 small onions;
• 3-4 cloves of garlic;
• 600-700 g of tomatoes (cream);
• 0.5 cups of dry white wine;
• 1 bunch of parsley;
• black pepper and salt to taste.

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Pour mussels in shell in a deep container with clean water and leave for 1 hour to let the sand come out. Thoroughly remove any deposits from sinks.

2. Immerse whole tomatoes in boiling water. After a few seconds, turn off the heat and remove with a slotted spoon.

3. Stalk each tomato and peel it off. After boiling water, it will be easily removed. Cut the peeled tomatoes into wedges.

4. Melt butter in a frying pan and send chopped onions to fry.

5. After a couple of minutes, add chopped garlic and chopped tomatoes to the onion.After boiling, season with salt and stir.

6. Continue cooking for a puree tomato sauce. Pour wine into the sauce, pepper and let it boil.

7. Finely chop the parsley, add half of the whole volume to the mass.

8. Place washed mussels in boiling sauce, stir and cover. Simmer over low heat. When all the shells open, the mollusk is ready.

Sprinkle the finished dish with fresh parsley. Serve in portions with the white wine used for the sauce.

Features of storage in marinade or boiled

Many grocery supermarkets and outlets offer pickled mussels

When buying such a product, you need to pay attention to the date of manufacture and the expiration date. An open package of marinated shellfish has a minimum shelf life of only two calendar days

However, there are some tricks that can help preserve the nutritional properties of pickled shellfish for a given time.

To do this, it is recommended to pour a small amount of vegetable oil into an uncorked container. Pickled mussels are often used as an ingredient in all kinds of seafood salads. They also belong to the category of perishable food and should be stored for no longer than one day. Eating any form of pickled seafood beyond the recommended shelf life is hazardous to health.

To cook high-quality boiled seafood on your own, you must follow these steps:

1. Rinse the shells under running cold water, rubbing lightly with a soft kitchen sponge.
2. Pour a liter of purified water and a glass of white wine into a large saucepan.
3. Add dill sprigs, garlic cloves, a spoonful of salt, three sweet peas and five hot black peppercorns.
4. Boil the liquid.
5. Boil the broth for five minutes.
6. Toss the mussels and simmer over medium heat for another five minutes.
7. At the end of the cooking process, catch the clams with a slotted spoon and put on a dish.
8. Open the shutters, season with lemon wedges and garlic and dill caught from the pan.

For long-term storage, it is recommended to freeze boiled seafood immediately after cooling, using the method discussed above. You can store them for three months.

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Beneficial features

1. Delicious mussel
contains a large amount of proteins and, at the same time, there is practically no harmful fat in it, for example, a dozen mussels in nutritional value replace a good piece of meat, but much healthier than it. Therefore, it is an ideal product in the diet of athletes, workers employed in heavy production and people recovering from serious illnesses.

3. Regular consumption of mussels reduces the risk of cancer, strengthens the immune system, promotes the elimination of harmful substances from the body and improves the quality of the blood.

4. Mussels have a low calorie content, only 77 kcal per 100 g and are a good antioxidant, and the abundance of phosphatidates has a beneficial effect on the liver.

5. In addition, mussels are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, various trace elements and vitamins that improve brain activity and vision.

In addition to useful properties, mussels also have a disadvantage. The thing is that these mollusks, passing a huge amount of water through themselves, accumulate a rather dangerous nerve poison, saxitoxin, and a large amount of it is unsafe for humans. However, if you choose the right products, then the risk of poisoning is minimal.

How to choose
delicious mussels

It is believed that the best in taste are those mussels that are caught in the cold season. Mussels can be sold with or without shells.

The caught mussels are tightly closed, and when scalded with boiling water or boiled for 5 minutes, they should open, if they do not open, then these can be safely thrown away.

To check their freshness and quality, you can also shake them; nothing should dangle inside the sinks.

Fresh produce smells like the smell of the sea, and bad-smelling shellfish can harm your health.

You should also not buy mussels with whitish and broken shells.

When buying frozen products by weight, make sure that there is no ice on them.

How to store

After catching fresh and tasty mussels
can survive for a few more days. Immediately after purchase, they must be covered with ice, so that they do not come into contact with the flowing water. Store no more than 3 days

It is better to cook purchased fresh mussels on the same day, since due to the high amount of protein in them, harmful bacteria quickly begin to form, leading to poisoning.

How to use

The best way to cook mussels is to steam, but you can also boil it, spending 3-5 minutes. Before eating shellfish, they are usually poured with lemon juice.

A man in a pub, for the first time ordered a dish with mussels and asks the waiter:

- Hey, how can we get these mussels out of there?

The waiter replies:

- Don't get them out. You just make a hole in the side of the mussel and suck it out. The man understood everything, took the mussel, made a hole and began to suck it out. Sucked out for a long time - nifiga does not work. I decided to look through the hole, what was the matter. He looked, and there the mollusk in a terrible position spread out in all directions, rested, saw a peasant and in an angry voice:

- Che look, let's suck!

From this article you learned, but to include it in your diet or not, everyone decides for himself.

Successful and useful shopping!

We have a special attitude to seafood, because these are quite expensive products. If you bought this delicacy and don't know how to store mussels, it's time to learn all the secrets of storing this delicious and healthy seafood. We love mussels for their unique taste and aroma, and even a small supply of them at home is already the confidence that you can prepare an awesome table in just half an hour for the arrival of guests. How to store mussels at home, we will tell about this in our article.

How to store frozen oysters

One of the popular ways to store oysters at home is to freeze them. After defrosting, this delicacy loses its taste, so thawed oysters are not eaten raw. Freezing oysters, peeled from shells, is simple - for this you need to put them on a plate and wrap them tightly on top with cling film and a bag.

Store in a freezer no longer than 30 days at a temperature of -18 ° C ... -21 ° C. They should be defrosted in the refrigerator, and then checked for quality - everything should be transparent.

If you want to prepare closed oysters for future use, then you will need a special container with ice. Ice is poured on the bottom, after which the shellfish are laid out and frozen.

The shelf life of oysters frozen in shells is no more than 3 months at a temperature of -18 ° C ..- 21 ° C. Before serving, the oysters should be kept in the refrigerator until completely defrosted, at least 3 hours, and then served.

This product cannot be re-frozen.

So, how to cook mussels, or rather even how to cook mussels at home

As an example, the three simplest recipes for making mussels are perfect:

2. Also, at home, you can make a salad from mussels. You will need: mussels, bell peppers, pickled cucumbers, Chinese cabbage, lemon juice. From spices: olive oil, garlic, pepper, salt and Tabasco sauce.

3. The most sophisticated way to cook mussels at home is probably pilaf. The main thing is not to forget that this is pilaf, and the dish should still be dominated by rice, not mussels. In order to cook mussel pilaf, you will need: 700 grams of mussels, a glass of rice, 40 grams of butter, carrots, onions, 20 grams of tomato paste. When choosing spices, take: salt, bay leaf, pepper, at your discretion.

Cooking pilaf begins with boiling mussels.While the mussels are boiling, fry the grated carrots and onions in butter. After they acquire a golden hue, add rice to them. Add 2 cups of water to the resulting consistency, in which the mussels were cooked, stir, add tomato paste and spices. A few minutes before the end of cooking, add the mussels. Such pilaf becomes, comes out very tasty, satisfying and healthy. And every time you try such a dish, your family and friends will praise you. From this we can conclude that it is better to cook mussels, in this way, by yourself, so as not to confuse the composition and amount of spices, because each person has his own taste.

If you want to cook something savory, then cook mussels with vegetables or Korean mussels. You can also cook mussels in sour cream. These recipes can be easily implemented at home. We will cover this below.

How to store ready-made mussels

Often on sale mussels can be found already boiled, so they can be stored for a very long time when deep frozen. If you've cooked mussels and haven't used all of them, they can be stored the way we usually store meat or fish. Ready-made mussels can be stored in the freezer, like supermarkets do. Put the mussels in a tray, letting the water drain beforehand, and it is better to blot them with paper napkins so that ice does not form. How long should ready-made mussels be stored and how to make them ready for use immediately after defrosting? During cooking, add spices and salt to the water so that the mussels are cooked, boiled they can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months.

How to store ready-made mussels if you have already seasoned them? Place the finished dish in a clean glass container and store in the refrigerator for no longer than 24 hours.

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Storing fresh mussels

Live molluscs are stored at a temperature that does not exceed + 7 ° C. Within 2 - 3 days, most likely, the mollusks will die. Therefore, you need to use them during this time. Better yet, the day they were purchased. So there will be more guarantees of product quality. After all, it is not known how long and in what conditions they were until the moment of implementation.

• Mussels, which were moved to the refrigerator shelf from the freezer for the purpose of defrosting, can also be stored there for no more than 2 - 3 days.
• Ice will help prolong the freshness of seafood for 1 - 2 days. The shellfish should be laid out on an ice surface, and then covered with ice pieces on top. It is better if this happens in a colander placed in a deep bowl. Then the water from the melting ice will flow down, and the mussels will not be in it.
• Shellfish that are kept chilled should be inspected regularly. If one of them dies, he is immediately thrown away, otherwise, soon all the seafood may deteriorate.
• Storing live shellfish can also take place in cold water. Although the previous storage method is preferred.

There is a way to store live mussels, in which they are laid out on a flat dish, covered with a damp cloth and sent to the cold. The disadvantage of this type of storage is the large number of dead shellfish. To minimize waste, each sink is wrapped in a damp natural cloth. You will need to cook seafood that was stored in this way the very next day, no later.

How to properly freeze mussels

In large farms that are engaged in breeding mussels, after catching them, they are immediately frozen using the most modern cryotechnology, but mussels can also be frozen at home. There are several ways to freeze mussels - fresh or boiled. In any case, at first it is tedious to wash the mussels thoroughly, scrape off the hairs from the valves with a knife and remove all the sand. If the flap of the mussel is slightly open, it must be thrown aside. Washed mussels are laid out in portions in bags and placed in the freezer.

In order to prepare boiled mussels for freezing, they need to be washed, peeled and put in a saucepan. There should be a little water so that it only covers the mussels. You need to cook for no more than 7 minutes, after which, without pouring out the broth, put it to cool. The mussels should be placed in containers along with the broth and placed in the freezer. In both cases, the freezer must be brought to maximum power, and after an hour, return to normal operation.

How to eat mussels, video

Mussel dishes are quite popular in the world, but not everyone knows how to properly eat this seafood delicacy.

Everything is edible in mussels except shells.

In this case, it does not matter if the product is baked, boiled or fried. Before eating an exotic seafood delicacy, you need to cook it, then remove the meat from the shell, and then you can dip it in some kind of sauce or just eat it ready-made without sauce.

It is important to consume cooked mussels fresh, without leaving them to be stored the next day or for a week. Remember, stale seafood can lead to serious food poisoning. You can eat a seafood delicacy with a fork, spoon or Chinese chopsticks. Everything here will depend on your preferences.

Before buying seafood, remember that mussels can cause allergies, and therefore it is not recommended to consume shellfish meat for allergy sufferers and people with blood clotting problems.

Now you know absolutely everything about mussels, how to cook frozen mussels, peel, serve. It remains only to purchase seafood and surprise your household or guests with wonderful tasty and, most importantly, healthy treats.

How should you handle the finished dish?

The extraction of meat from a finished product is a real art, and in the absence of the appropriate skills, the process of eating a delicacy can turn into torture. If the menu includes a dish of mussels, then the table must be served with special devices, consisting of tweezers and an oyster fork.

We take the tweezers in our left hand, squeeze the shell, which remains in the plate, and carefully remove the meat with a fork. It is poured over with sauce and eaten. Used sinks are stacked on a separate plate. The whole procedure is quite troublesome, but after a while it even starts to give aesthetic pleasure. The main thing is to act carefully so as not to splash the juice of others.

Processing mussels before cooking is a guarantee of high-quality cleaning of the product, because it is not very pleasant to feel not juicy meat on your teeth, but grains of sand. It is highly not recommended to pre-marinate the product, it will lose its traditional softness and turn into a fragrant, but tasteless snack.

How to cook mussels in Korean

Mussels cooked in Korean have an exotic, sweet taste. To prepare mussels in Korean, you will need: (composition) 3 onions, mussels. Dressing: soy sauce, lemon juice, salt, 10 grams of honey, black pepper, coriander and nutmeg.

Let's start cooking mussels in Korean by boiling them in boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes. After that, pour them into a sieve and let the liquid drain. Then, remove the small green layer under the black tongue. Chop the onion and sprinkle it with lemon juice. We mix it with mussels.

The second step in cooking mussels in Korean is dressing. Mix all ingredients for dressing and heat over low heat. Then we mix them with mussels and onions, and then leave to infuse at room temperature.

The third step in the preparation of mussels is, oddly enough, a marinade. We put the resulting mixture in the refrigerator overnight. Stir every few hours so that the meat marinates evenly. From this, the taste of mussels will become much richer and brighter.

Mussels in shells - a recipe for cooking with white wine and cream

Probably everyone knows that white wine is served with fish and seafood. What if you made a clam sauce from wine? Such a dish is prepared in a classic Chinese wok, but at home you can take an ordinary deep frying pan.

For the recipe you will need:

• 1 kg of mussels;
• 1 head of garlic;
• 1 onion;
• a small bunch of greens;
• spices to taste - curry, dried ginger, oregano, chili;
• 200 ml 20% cream;
• 1 tbsp olive oil;
• 100 ml of wine;
• 100 ml of water;
• salt and allspice to taste.

Instructions step by step:

1. Rinse the mussels under running water.

2. Chop the onion into small cubes, crush the garlic with the flat side of a knife.

3. Put the wok on medium heat with vegetable oil. Add the onion and garlic to the heated oil. Saute until the onion is golden brown.

4. Add spices and fry for another 1.5-2 minutes to give off their flavor.

5. Pour wine and water into the wok. Keep on fire for another 4-5 minutes. If the sauce is boiling violently, reduce the cooking power. Season with salt and allspice in the middle of cooking.

6. When the broth is golden brown, add the mussels to it. Simmer in broth for 4-5 minutes without a lid. Stir occasionally to soak the clams well in the sauce.

7. Pour cream over the dish and continue simmering for 2-3 minutes until tender. If you are using live mussels, inspect them carefully before adding cream. Unopened shells will have to be removed so as not to spoil the food.

8. At the end of cooking, add chopped herbs.

Put the stewed clams on a platter and serve with the wine-cream sauce. You can also cook this dish in a multicooker. Use the modes "Roast", "Bake" or "Stew".

How to store oysters properly

It is considered correct to buy shellfish just before serving, but if you will be consuming oysters later, you should know how to store them after purchase. If there are grains of sand and algae left on the shells, they can be cleaned with an old toothbrush, but real gourmets say that it is better to serve them unwashed - this way the naturalness of the delicacy is preserved.

The best option for storing live shellfish will be regular ice. Freeze ice packs for cocktails in advance and place them in a separate bowl. Put the oysters on top and store in the refrigerator for 3-6 hours. The ice will not melt quickly if you set the temperature in the chamber to + 2 ° C. If you periodically change the ice, then the shelf life of oysters will increase to 5-7 days.

If it is not possible to make ice, you can wrap the clams in a towel dipped in ice water. The term, how many oysters are stored in the refrigerator in this form, before serving, is no more than 3 days at a temperature not higher than + 3 ° C.

You can also place the oysters on top of something frozen from the freezer, such as a piece of meat. In the refrigerator, at a temperature not higher than + 5 ° C, the meat will defrost for a long time and thus you can store the oysters fresh and very cold for up to 2 days, after which you can make ice and continue storage in one of the above ways.

The methods can be combined - on ice, in a towel or on frozen food, oysters will be stored even better, since it is important to keep them as cold as possible. All of the above methods for keeping oysters fresh are suitable for enclosed clams.

Remember to open a live oyster just before eating and do not store uneaten oysters in the shell.

All of the above methods for keeping oysters fresh are suitable for enclosed shellfish. Remember to open a live oyster just before eating and do not store uneaten oysters in the shell.

Important: periodically check for open shells among the oysters. No matter how correct the term and storage conditions are, it is difficult not to avoid the fact that individual mollusks may die.

It is strictly forbidden to store live oysters in a package - they must have constant access to fresh air, otherwise all the shellfish will quickly deteriorate and the shells will open. This is the most important point in how to store oysters in shells, which should always be remembered.

Therefore, you should carefully sort out all the shells and discard the open ones. It is strictly forbidden to eat dead shellfish in order to avoid severe poisoning. The storage conditions of oysters cannot be changed, since they remain alive for a long time only at low temperatures. Therefore, they should be stored in only one chosen way - either in the refrigerator or in the freezer, which we will discuss below.

It is best to store oysters in the refrigerator on the top shelf, and choose the way of storage yourself. Although these mollusks live in warm waters, they need to be kept fresh only at temperatures no higher than + 3 ° C and no longer than 7 days. But another way of storage is not excluded.