Lidia Celebrates America

- Buongiorno, benvenuti, welcome to my kitchen, and today, we are doing seafood, mussels.

I love mussels.

Mussels Triestina, a simple 10-minute cooking time and you got yourself a great dish on the table.

So let's start with the basis of the sauce.

Some olive oil (gentle upbeat music) and onions, a little bit on the thicker slice.

I like them like that because at the end, they remain kind of, you get a little bite of them, you don't want them to disintegrate.

(pan sizzling) So when the onions are sort of beginning to wilt, I make a little space in the corner and sliced garlic.

Sliced garlic, the more you cut garlic, the more flavor you get out of it, but if you have difficulties digesting garlic, just put the whole clove, crush it and put the whole clove so you can remove it after.

We'll add some salt here just to salt the onions and the garlic, the mussels are salty enough from the sea and I think that's enough, just enough for the onions and the garlic.

Peperoncino, I like my hot pepper, you can put in there, I like abundance of it.

You can measure, make it hotter or lesser if you will, but I like mine spicy, especially the mussels are really good when there's a little spice into it.

So let's put the bay leaves now.

Like to put the bay leaves in there, fresh bay leaves and now, let's get the mussels, (gentle upbeat music) but once you wash them and all of that, and you can just put them on top of ice in another bowl and they can stay outside so it's easier for you to cook.

So mussels, (mussels clacking) these are beautiful, you know, take them and put them in your hand.

First of all, they need to be nice and tight.

Any open mussels, like this one here, let's see.

Try to squeeze it and if it's closing like this one did, that means that they're alive, but if they do not close, then discard them.

That means that they're dead.

(mussels clacking) Right in the pan like that.

(pan sizzling) Some white wine, dry, good wine.

As long as it's a good wine, one that you like, you know, I'm from Friuli, so I use Friulian white because I drink it and I cook with it, okay.

(mussels clacking) There's enough wine in there.

Let them steam open.

The mussels are cooking.

Scallions, I love scallions.

What I'm gonna do is that I'm gonna cut this, the white part, and I'm gonna add this to the cooking scallions because it takes a little bit to cook and then I'm gonna cut the green part and that's gonna be the decoration.

So let's put it in.

(gentle upbeat music) And now this part is gonna be like parsley on top, just to put it on top at the end gives it that freshness.

I also save these parts always for when I make soups and if you happen not to make soup that day, you can freeze it and it's great to be put in the soup.

So we have that ready for the finishing and this needs to cook a little bit.

You know, mussels, I'm very connected to because I was born in Istria, which is on the Adriatic, and, you know, as kids we would go to the beach every summer, all summer, and we would sort of collect the shells, the little crabs, the mussels, buckets full and bring them home and that would've been lunch or dinner or whatever.

Grandma really looked forward to it, but the certain time of the month depends on the moon, that's what I was told, when they are heavier and fuller and better and I don't like big, big mussels.

I like the medium-sized mussels.

These are nice and meaty.

I could see already as I'm mixing them.

So let's check on them.

Okay, so here they are, they are opening, mm, you don't wanna overcook mussels.

The one thing you don't wanna do is overcook mussels.

Absolutely, like clams, you don't want, they become tough.

I add a little bit of the raw olive oil, just like that so that it's absorbed in and at this point, (gentle upbeat music) breadcrumbs, so whenever you're making clams, mussels, or even shrimps or whatever and you have a lot of liquid, little breadcrumbs will do the trick.

Some nice breadcrumbs, they could be toasted or not, and you just spill them around Just like that.

You can always add breadcrumbs.

So don't put too much breadcrumbs because otherwise it becomes muddy.

Your sauce becomes really dense and muddy.

Let's mix it like that.

Okay, at this point I will throw in the parsley, the chopped parsley, and the rest of the scallions.

Wow, does this look good and steamy?

It's ready to be plated.

Now, when you cook it, you need to serve it.

You can't leave it hanging around.

So let's do just that.

A nice bowl because it's a little soupy at the end and what I like to do is I take a slotted spoon so that I can get the mussels out and the juices underneath and then I'll pour the juice on top.

Look at this.

Mm-hmm.

So let's do the other one.

When you serve it, always put an empty bowl for the shells and let me take some of the sauce.

Now I have the sauce on the bottom and you see the sauce is just dense enough.

That's one.

Okay, but this is a little bit of decoration.

You know how I like my to have a little color like that?

Okay, that's one (gentle upbeat music) and the other right here.

Now, fettunta is grilled, then brushed with olive oil and just some garlic, you rub right in it and that mops up all of the sauce in there and I'm gonna show you how to do that.

So here I am.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Now, of course, I cooked with the white wine and you drink white wine with this.

Again, Friuli, Trieste is in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Istria, their white wines, have great wine wines.

Some Friulano actually goes great with that.

I'm gonna take one fettunta and a fork.

So take off the shell and then what I like to do is I just like to sort of collect some of the sauce and then slurp it all in.

Mm.

(gentle upbeat music) Delicious, so delicious, mm.

Dunk the bread.

Mm, mamma mia, que buono.

(gentle upbeat music) Immigrants like me have added to America's rich and diverse tapestry of culture, religion, and food.

- It's a pleasure to have you here.

- [Lidia] In my upcoming "Lidia Celebrates America" special, I set out to meet some of our nation's more recent arrivals.

What motivated their journey here?

What challenges have they faced and what does being an American mean to them?