The recipe of Black Sea Midye Supa is simple but the final taste is very delicious.

The key of importance is freshness and quality of mussels as well as very careful cleaning of them before usage. Selection of the mussels requires only undamaged and fresh-smelling ones. All mussels should be tightly closed and any of them should be rejected if they do not shut when tapped.

Careful cleaning consists of three steps.

1) Scrape off any barnacles from the outsides of each mussel shell by the backside of the knife.

2) By the same small knife and against the thumb pull out and detach any hair-like beard fibers from the hinges of each mussel shell.

3) Scrub intensively each mussel from both shells’ sides under running cold water with a stiff brush in order to remove any sand and clean well mussels for cooking.

Keep carefully cleaned mussels in a big bowl with lightly salted cold water for about 2 hours or until ready to cook. If you keep muscles for longer than 2-3 hour pay attention to the salted water. It should be cold and may need to add some ice in it.

Course – Soup

Serves 15

Preparation time – 3 hours Cooking time – 40 minutes

1 kg of Black Sea Mussels in shells,

5 liters of water

1 onion chopped

3 garlic cloves sliced

1/2 of parsnip root diced

50 ml of olive oil

20 g lovage

50 g of white wine

200 g sour cream

salt

1 tbsp of grated hard cheese like Parmesan

125 g butter

1 tbsp wheat flour

1 tbsp red pepper

1 lemon

Boil until opened 1 kg of cleaned mussels with shells. Chop the onion and fry in a small amount of olive oil in a pan. Add garlic cloves slices, add chopped half a parsnip root and lovage. Add white wine and simmer covered.

Strain the broth of mussels, put in stewed vegetables and add 200 g of fermented sour cream. Take aside two mussels with shells per each serving, peel off the shells of the rest and put in the soup. Add 250 – 300 ml of water, grated Parmesan cheese and leave on low heat for 10 minutes.

Dressing preparing: Take 1 tablespoon of wheat flour and fry in 125 g of butter until brown. Add 1 tablespoon of red pepper for only 10 seconds and add the mixture into the soup. Leave on low heat for 5 minutes until smooth.

When serving, put the remaining mussels with shells in each portion, pour over the soup and decorate with fresh lovage and a slice of lemon.

Serve with toasted slices of garlic bread with butter.

Black Sea Midye Supa traditionally served hot. It goes well with a glass of white wine or beer.

You can enjoy Black Sea Midye Supa with friends and family in #BlackSeaCuisine restaurants or at home as it is not complicated to prepare yourself.

Black Sea Cuisine is simple, tasty and inexpensive.