Saturday

Buongiorno, hope you are enjoying the weekend.
Today I'm giving you two recipes one this morning and one in the afternoon. This morning's is a very light starter and later a nice dish for saturday evening.
Before the recipe I want to tell you why I always mention flat leaf parsley and not the one you usually find here in the UK.  The flat one is fresher and doesn't have that sweet end to it that will not help in italian dishes.

Zuppetta di cozze, mussels soup:

For two people

4 tablespoon e.v. olive oil
200 gr. fresh mussels
3 cloves of garlic
10 cherry tomatoes
a bunch of flat leaf parsley
salt
1 chilli
2 slices of italian bread or ciabatta

In a large and deep pan, heat the oil and add 2 chopped garlic cloves and chilli. When starting to get coloured add the mussels and leave covered for one minute, then when they start to open add the cherry tomatoes cut in half and a pinch of salt, leave for two, three minutes and add the chopped parsley.
At the same time heat a grill pan and toast your bread on it, when it starts to get nice and marked like on a barbecue take off and use one clove of garlic to flavour it by brushing on the crusty sides, with a brush then add oil and a pinch of salt.
Transfer the mussels into a bowl and sprinkle more parsley and cover with the slices of bread, buon appetito.

Some people will add wine to the recipe, but as I explained yesterday if the mussels are fresh there is not need to do so.

One last thing before I finish when you buy the mussels make sure that they are all closed, then leave them in cold water with a pinch of rock sea salt for a minute and clean well with a knife, discard the open ones before use.
Another important thing is to smell the shellfish when cooking it, if any strong or unpleasant smells come from it find the wrong mussels or don't eat it and make it another time.

One last thing as is the case when you prepare your mussels you need to discard the open ones, you have to discard any mussels which are still closed when they are cooked>