summer food: mussels with sopressata
Jun 18, 2010 
I have a love / hate relationship with camping. Love : pulling into our campsite for the first time and seeing the beautiful, woodsy, home-away-from-home that I spent hours researching on google. Hate: public bathrooms, random shower drain hairs and forgetting to pack my flip flops. Love: sitting around the campfire at night, post-s’mores, thinking about hoping into our tent with the cushy air mattress and down comforter from our bed. Hate: realizing the moisture in the damp air soaked our comforter and my husband let in a billion mosquitoes, turning our tiny tent into a Mississippi-like biosphere.
Oh, the list goes on and on, but the one part about camping that I can’t find an ounce to complain about is the food. Nothing is better than campsite cooking. And I don’t mean just a box of mac ’n cheese under the stars or instant pancakes at the crack of dawn. I mean making something special, something that you’ve put a little thought into and planned a bit in advance. Making something that the overly aggressive campground squirrels have never seen the likes of before, right out there in the middle of the woods.
For our inaugural (and most likely only) camping trip of the summer, we headed to Whidbey Island, WA, home of some of the most breathtaking views of the Olympic Mountains and the Penn Cove mussel. You can find these particularly delicious bivalves on restaurant menus all over the country these days, but since we were camping along the waters where they are raised and harvested, grabbing a few pounds at the local market for a cocktail-hour appetizer was a total must.
This mussel dish is so incredibly flavorful. And there is little more to it than roughly chopping (a “campsite dice” I like to call it) a few items, tossing all the ingredients in a pot and letting ‘em rip over the hot coals until the mussels have opened. Scrubbing the mussels and removing their beards takes the most time. But sitting in a lawn chair by the water spigot overlooking the Strait of Juan deFuca, a glass of chilly vinho verde by my side, somehow makes the hard work, and camping, so very, very delightful. -Sarah
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon butter
4 oz sopressata, chopped to about a 1/2 inch dice
4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 pounds Penn Cove mussels, cleaned and beards removed
1 cup dry white wine
1 small lemon, sliced in 1/4 inch rounds
Preparation:
Preheat a stock pot over prepared coals, about 5 minutes. Add olive oil and butter. Once the butter’s foam subsides, add sopressata and saute until browned and crispy around the edges, about 7-10 minutes. Add garlic, fennel, and red pepper and saute until very fragrant, about 3-5 minutes. Add mussels, wine and lemon. Give a good stir, cover and cook until mussels open, about 5 minutes, depending on your fire. Uncover the pot and discard any mussels that don’t open. Divide mussels evenly among 4 bowls and spoon broth over them, or just pop the pot right on the table and have at it. Serve with a crusty baguette for broth mopping and nice, crisp, summery white.
lazy summer, mussles, sarah flotard in food and drink
Reader Comments (7)
Thanks Sarah, for inspiring me to go more gourmet - and more local - when car-camping!
Ah, this is bringing back fond memories of my own camping-mussel experience. Your ingredient list is encouraging me to do it all over again. Our basic wine and garlic just doesn't hold a candle to your recipe. Thanks!
this beats any buttery brothy mussel dish in any provance of france. and to top it off, it's simple to do. thanks for this recipe and for reminding us that camping CAN be sophisticated and cultured. i just wish your MGG boss would have posted it up in time for our shasta camping experience. whatevs.
Makes me want to set up a makeshift campsite in our backyard (OK, concrete alley) and get cooking with my toes in a baby pool...
Campsite dice -- I love it! I sometimes pre-make things too and bring them camping to step it up from the normal sausage fare. I love this idea and hope to try it out sometime this summer!
I could not have written camping "loves & hates" better myself! I found that incredibly relatable :) I would add to my list: Love: early morning bird chirps. Hate: any kind of sand/gravel in the tent that sticks to my bare feet no matter what I do!
The best mussel dinner I've ever had was on a backpacking trip to Neah Bay on the peninsula. My Dad had brought a long a little tupperware with butter and minced garlic and we picked mussels at low tide and cooked them over the campfire. It was perfect after a few days of sandwiches and oatmeal.