Sizzling Garlic and Parmesan Mussels

We cooked some mussels tonight with fresh bread and a salad on the side. We haven’t cooked mussels in a while and decided to try a new recipe (using the gas Weber) for a change. In this case we used mussels that were pre-packed in a 1 kg bag (and cleaned); they were excellent!

I used the following for this cook:
Weber (my trusty gasser)
Long tongs
BBQ gloves

Recipe:
30g melted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/3 cup chopped parsley
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 kg mussels, pre-scrubbed and debearded (available from seafood retailers)

As I mentioned we used cleaned mussels from a “package”; looks something like this:

They looked pretty fresh and an opened package looks like this:

The preparation is easy, mix together the first 6 ingredients (in the meantime pre-heat a barbeque to medium heat.

Place the mussels on the barbeque evenly on the grill (they balance nicely):

After about 5 minutes they will start to “open”, take the mussels of the BBQ allow the mussels to cool slightly, then snap off the top shell, leaving the mussel still attached to the bottom shell.
Place about ½ teaspoon of the garlic butter mixture on top of each mussel.
Return the mussel half shells to the barbeque, ensuring they are level so the juices stay inside the shells. Cook for 2 minutes or until sizzling.

Take them off and plate them up (yeah 1 kg is barely enough for 2!!)…

They were excellent and with the bread (for dipping) it was a great meal. A couple of lessons learned…
Don’t have the BBQ on too high as it will tend to cook the mussels too much (and will crack the shell), als take them off in time (i.e. don’t overcook as the sauce dry out). This only happened with a handful of the mussels but something to look out for. I guess mussels are similar to prawns they don’t take too long to BBQ so don’t overcook them.