{"id":6955,"date":"2018-01-26T19:55:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T08:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=6955"},"modified":"2018-01-26T19:55:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T08:55:52","slug":"beautiful-bivalves-make-summer-feast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/living\/beautiful-bivalves-make-summer-feast\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful bivalves make for summer feast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Isn\u2019t this summer weather just glorious? I know we need some rain but so far 2018 has produced those beautiful summer days to enjoy outdoors while having a few days off.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even if you are working, it still seems like holiday time.<\/p>\n<p>I have been playing golf, swimming and have spent a few hours in the kitchen. Most of the time, I\u2019ve cooked quick and simple meals to be enjoyed outdoors. On a couple of occasions, it struck me how easy it was to put together restaurant quality meals at home using fresh ingredients.<\/p>\n<p>Simplicity is the key. The first of these dinners was a scotch fillet served with a salad. My sister-in-law bought some beautiful scotch steaks and we barbecued them medium rare with just salt, pepper and mustard on the side.<\/p>\n<p>To accompany this, I tossed together a vegetable salad using all the leftover salad and vegetables I had in the fridge with some Meredith goat\u2019s cheese, some oil from the jar and a splash of verjuice.<\/p>\n<p>Married with some oven roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic, we dined like kings with such little effort.<\/p>\n<p>The next meal we enjoyed is an annual ritual for us. The Portarlington Mussel Festival provides the inspiration and ingredients for our summer mussel-a-thon.<\/p>\n<p>We buy a five-kilo box and prepare them in a different way each year. This time it was a cream-based sauce with saffron and leeks. Those who wish to eat must participate in the cleaning and debearding of the beautiful bivalves.<\/p>\n<p>We had about 10 people who made short work of the mussel preparation and which ensured they each got a seat at the table.<\/p>\n<p>You need a couple of serious saucepans to cook five kilos of mussels at once. Beg, borrow or steal these and the rest is easy. I always cook the sauce and mussels separately to avoid any grit finding its way onto the serving plates. To enhance the flavour of the sauce I add half a cup of the mussel liquor strained through a very fine sieve (preferably muslin cloth). Many recipes suggest using all the liquid and combine this directly with the sauce. My experience has been this makes for a thin, salty and often overpowering accompaniment.<\/p>\n<p>The other myth about cooking mussels is to discard the shells which do not open. I think all they need is a little more heat and possibly a knife carefully slipped between the shell to reveal the treasure within.<\/p>\n<p>Long may our summer feasts continue with hopefully a drop of rain to help our producers. Following is the recipe I used for our mussels this year. We served this with a green salad and lots of crusty bread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isn\u2019t this summer weather just glorious? I know we need some rain but so far 2018 has produced those beautiful summer days to enjoy outdoors while having a few days off. Even if you are working, it still seems like holiday time. I have been playing golf, swimming and have spent a few hours in [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/living\/beautiful-bivalves-make-summer-feast\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":6956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-6955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Beautiful bivalves make for summer feast - Surf Coast Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/living\/beautiful-bivalves-make-summer-feast\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beautiful bivalves make for summer feast - Surf Coast Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Isn\u2019t this summer weather just glorious? I know we need some rain but so far 2018 has produced those beautiful summer days to enjoy outdoors while having a few days off. Even if you are working, it still seems like holiday time. 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