Slices of toasted bread topped with plump orange mussels glossy with paprika-red oil, slivers of soft onion and chopped parsley, on a wooden board

Mussels Escabeche on Toast

Of all the things Galicia puts in a tin, mussels in escabeche are the one that comes out as a finished dish. Lift the lid and there is nothing left to do but find bread. The mussels sit plump and orange in a sauce of olive oil, vinegar and pimentón, sharp enough to wake up a cold glass of white wine and rich enough to soak a slice of toast through.

This recipe makes the same thing from a kilo of live mussels. It takes about half an hour of work and a night in the fridge, and along the way it shows what the canneries are doing. The method comes down to three heats, each gentler than the one before: a short, hard blast of steam for the mussels, a slow warm for the oil, and no direct heat at all for the pimentón. Get any one of those three wrong and the escabeche suffers.

From a Baghdad vinegar stew to a Galician tin

The word is much older than the dish. Escabeche descends from sikbāj, a vinegar stew of medieval Baghdad whose name is Persian: sik for vinegar, bāj for stew. A recipe for it survives in al-Baghdādī's cookbook of 1226, made with chicken, wine vinegar, coriander, saffron and ginger. Daniel Newman, who holds the chair of Arabic Studies at Durham University, cites the 1964 translation of al-Baghdādī for the point that the dish has not survived in Middle Eastern cooking, while a descendant lives on in Spanish escabeche. Spanish scholars trace the Castilian escabeche to the Arabic of al-Andalus, and the Catalan historical dictionary traces escabetx to Arabic sikbāj, probably by way of Sicilian schibbeci.

The Book of Sent Soví, a medieval Catalan cookbook, has only four fish recipes, and one of them is escabetx: fried fish under a vinegar sauce. For centuries escabeche was a way to preserve fish and game birds under oil, vinegar and spices, and the Catalan historical dictionary glosses sikbāj itself as meat preserved in salt and vinegar.

The mussels came much later. Galicia began farming mussels on floating platforms, bateas, in its sheltered inlets in the mid-1940s. Ropes hang beneath the rafts, and young mussels settle on them and grow in the plankton-rich water without touching the bottom. According to the FAO, the Ría de Arousa alone accounts for about 60 percent of Spain's mussel production. In 2007 the European Union registered Mejillón de Galicia as a Protected Designation of Origin, and the Galician government describes it as the only seafood in Spain to hold one. The guide to Galicia's shellfish rías covers that coast in detail.

The canneries follow the old method with one industrial step added. The mussels are cooked, often given a quick fry in olive oil, packed and covered with escabeche. The sealed tin is then sterilized in a retort. A home kitchen can do everything except that last step, which is why a tin lasts in the cupboard and homemade escabeche lasts a few days in the fridge.

Three heats, each gentler than the last

The mussels: hard and short. A mussel is about done when its shell opens, and each extra minute in the pot costs moisture and size. In studies of heated mussel meat, cook loss, shrinkage and firmness all rose with heating time, and most of the loss happened in the first few minutes. So cook over high heat with the lid on, and lift each mussel out as it opens. Don't wait for the last one. The mussels also sit in a warm marinade afterwards, and that heat carries on cooking them a little.

The oil: low and slow. The garlic, onion, bay and pepper go into the oil cold and warm together for five or six minutes. You want the onion soft and sweet and the garlic the pale gold of straw. This is where the oil takes on its flavor, and browned garlic will make the whole jar bitter.

The pimentón: no direct heat. Paprika is high in natural sugars. The German spice house Altes Gewürzamt says those sugars start to caramelize and burn at about 140°C (284°F), and the Austrian producer Kotányi says paprika fried in hot fat turns bitter fast. Pull the pan off the burner, give it thirty seconds, then stir the pimentón in. The warm oil draws out its color and flavor, and the vinegar that goes in straight after brings the temperature down. Smoked pimentón de la Vera makes a darker, more campfire-smelling escabeche. Sweet unsmoked pimentón tastes closer to fresh peppers. The pimentón and smoked paprika guide explains the difference.

The last trick is the mussels' own liquid. A few spoonfuls of it, strained, go into the marinade. It is salty and tastes of the sea, and it softens the vinegar enough that the dish tastes of mussels first and acid second. Two parts oil to one part vinegar is a sound starting ratio, adjustable once you have tasted a batch.

Ingredients, for six as a tapa

  • 1 kg (2.2 lb) live mussels
  • 120 ml (1/2 cup) dry white wine, or water
  • 120 ml (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil, such as Capezzana (shop Capezzana Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
  • 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 small onion, sliced into thin half-moons
  • 2 bay leaves, or 1/4 teaspoon ground bay such as Burlap & Barrel's (shop Burlap & Barrel Laurel Bay Leaves)
  • 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, such as Burlap & Barrel Zanzibar (shop Zanzibar Black Peppercorns)
  • 1 whole clove (optional)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons sweet pimentón, smoked or unsmoked
  • 60 ml (1/4 cup) sherry vinegar, such as Pommery (shop Pommery Sherry Vinegar)
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
  • 18 slices of baguette or 6 slices of country bread
  • 1 garlic clove, halved, for the toast
  • A small handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
  • Flaky salt, to finish

Method

  1. Sort and clean the mussels. Throw out any with cracked or broken shells. Tap any that are gaping; a live mussel closes, and one that stays open goes in the bin. This is the check the FDA asks for before cooking, so do it properly. Scrub the shells under cold running water. The beard is the tuft of fibers sticking out from between the shells. Leave it on until just before cooking, then tug it firmly toward the hinge end so it snaps free.
  2. Steam them hard and briefly. Put the wine and the mussels in a wide pot with a lid and set it over high heat. After two minutes, shake the pot and look. Keep checking every minute. Lift the mussels out with tongs as they open, which usually takes 3 to 5 minutes in all; the meat should look plump and opaque and pull away from the shell. A few will stay stubbornly shut. The U.S. FDA advises throwing those out, and that is the cautious course. Australian research, described further down, found they were usually cooked through, but if in any doubt, discard them.
  3. Strain the liquid and shell the mussels. Line a sieve with a paper towel and pour the cooking liquid through it; the towel catches any grit. Keep 3 tablespoons and freeze or drink the rest. Pull the mussels from their shells into a shallow glass or ceramic dish that fits them in a snug layer.
  4. Warm the oil slowly. Put the olive oil, sliced garlic, onion, bay, peppercorns and clove in a small pan before turning on the heat. Warm over medium-low for 5 to 6 minutes, swirling now and then. The oil should shimmer gently, never spit. It is ready when the onion is limp and translucent and the garlic has just turned pale gold. If the garlic starts to brown at the edges, take the pan off the heat right away.
  5. Add the pimentón off the heat, then the vinegar. Move the pan off the burner, count thirty seconds, and stir in the pimentón. The oil will turn brick red straight away. Then add the vinegar, the reserved mussel liquid and the salt, standing back because it will spit. Return the pan to low heat for about a minute, just until the edges bubble. Taste it. It should be sharp and savory, with enough salt to taste of the sea.
  6. Marinate. Pour the warm, not boiling, escabeche over the mussels and push them under with a spoon so none sit above the surface. Let the dish cool to room temperature, cover it and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Overnight is better; the vinegar softens and the pimentón works its way into the mussels. Eat within 3 days.
  7. Build the toasts. Take the dish out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving so the oil can loosen. Toast or grill the bread until it is crisp outside and still slightly soft in the middle. Rub each slice once or twice with the cut garlic, spoon over a little marinade, and top with two or three mussels, a few slivers of onion from the marinade and some parsley. Finish with a few flakes of salt and a spoonful more of the oil.

Where it goes wrong

Symptom Likely cause Fix
Mussels small, rubbery, chewy Left in the pot after they opened, or covered with boiling marinade Lift each one out as it opens; let the marinade stop bubbling before you pour it
Marinade bitter, dull brown instead of red Pimentón went into oil that was too hot, or the garlic browned Start the marinade again; it only costs oil and spice. Take the pan off the heat before adding the pimentón
Harsh, all vinegar Eaten the same day, or too much vinegar for your taste Give it a night in the fridge; add a spoonful of olive oil or mussel liquid
Flat, tastes of pickle rather than mussel The cooking liquid was left out, or the marinade is undersalted Stir in the reserved liquid; salt a pinch at a time
Gritty The cooking liquid was not strained Strain through a paper towel next time; lift the mussels out and strain the marinade again
Toast soggy Assembled too early, or the bread was barely toasted Toast well and build the toasts just before they go out

When the tin does the work

A tin of mussels in escabeche is this recipe already cooked and sterilized. It needs no heating. Open it, let it warm up for a few minutes if the room is cold, and spoon the mussels and their sauce onto toast exactly as in the last step. The two numbers on the label count the mussels in the tin, so 6/8 means fewer, larger mussels than 8/12. The guide to reading a tinned fish label explains that grading.

The tins differ in the size of the mussel and the seasoning of the sauce. Espinaler packs its mussels at a 6/8 count, six to eight to the tin (shop Espinaler Mussels in Pickled Sauce 6/8). Ramón Peña packs an 8/10 count (shop Ramón Peña Mussels in Pickled Sauce 8/10), and the Fangst and Ramón Peña producer guide covers the cannery. Ati Manel makes a plain and a spiced version (shop Ati Manel Mussels in Pickled Sauce; shop Ati Manel Spiced Mussels in Pickled Sauce). "Pickled sauce" is how these export labels translate escabeche. Opening two or three side by side is the quickest way to learn the differences (shop tinned fish). The guide to using the oil and sauce left in a tin has uses for whatever sauce remains.

A tin also makes a good side dish next to the clams and cockles with white beans recipe, where its vinegar cuts through the beans. Toast rubbed with tomato, as in the pan con tomate recipe, is the other natural base.

In Denver

Water boils at about 202°F at Denver's elevation, roughly ten degrees lower than at sea level. Two small things change here. Food cooked in boiling water or steam takes longer at altitude, so the mussels may need an extra minute. Judge by the shells, not the clock. Liquids also evaporate sooner, so keep the lid on while steaming. Half a cup of wine should still leave plenty of liquid to strain. The marinade itself needs no adjustment. There is more on cooking at elevation in the Denver guide to cooking at altitude.

At the table

The beard you pulled off is the byssus, a bundle of threads that the mussel secretes to anchor itself. On a Galician raft, those threads held it to a rope hanging in the ría.

The rule about unopened mussels may have a traceable origin. The Australian fisheries biologist Nick Ruello, working on an industry-funded research project on farmed mussels, ran 33 formal cooking trials over 32 months. On average about 11 percent of the mussels stayed shut after a normal cooking time, and some stayed shut even after long cooking. When he prised them open with a knife, he found them cooked and no more dangerous than the open ones. The warning, he found, seemed to start with Jane Grigson's Fish Book of 1973 ("throw away any mussels that refuse to open"), written when some European mussels were still being dredged from polluted beds, and by 1990 almost every cookbook repeated it. The FDA still gives the old advice, so the cook's choice is between the cautious rule and the evidence. The Australian findings concern only mussels that stay shut after cooking; the FDA's tap test on raw mussels is a separate check.

The orange color is the newest part of the dish. The medieval Catalan escabetx could not have contained paprika, because peppers are an American plant. In La Vera, in Extremadura, the story goes that Columbus presented peppers to the Catholic Monarchs at the monastery of Guadalupe and that Hieronymite monks took them to their house at Yuste. A paper for the Coloquios Históricos de Extremadura calls this the hypothesis most accepted by some experts, not a documented fact; the other candidate is conquistadors bringing seeds home. The smoke is better documented. La Vera is far wetter than the rest of Extremadura, and its peppers are dried over holm oak and oak fires.

Peru's ceviche may be a distant relative. The Real Academia Española's historical dictionary says cebiche probably comes from the same Andalusi Arabic word as escabeche. Some Peruvian writers prefer a root in cebo, meaning a morsel of food, and the question is still open. If the dictionary is right, the two dishes are cousins that went in opposite directions: one preserves cooked fish in acid, and the other uses acid to "cook" raw fish.

The Ambrosian Pantry is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, where visitors can ask staff questions, and products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com.

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