Mussels Buying Guide: Black, Greenlip and Spring Bay

TL;DR: Black mussels are small, sweet and best for broth dishes. Greenlips are big, meaty and best grilled or baked on the half shell. Spring Bay are the plump Tasmanian premium option. Buy live, store cold and dry, cook the same day.

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Mussels are the best value shellfish in the shop and the one people are most nervous about. That nervousness is nearly always about the same thing: whether they are safe. It is a fair question, and the answer is simple enough once you know what to look for.

Here is what is in the cabinet and how to buy it well.

Black mussels

The everyday mussel. Smaller shells, deep blue black, and meat that is sweeter and more concentrated than the bigger species. They cook in about four minutes from cold.

The important thing about black mussels is what they give the pot. As they open they release their liquor, and that liquor is the reason moules mariniere, mussel pasta and Thai style coconut mussels taste of anything at all. Use a species with less flavour and the broth goes flat.

Buy them for: moules mariniere, chilli mussels, mussels in white wine, any pasta, any dish where you are eating the sauce.

Our fresh black mussels come in rope grown and largely debearded, so the prep is minimal.

Greenlip mussels

A New Zealand species, noticeably larger, with a distinctive green edge on the shell. The meat is fatter and milder than a black mussel, and there is simply more of it per shell.

Because they are big, they are the mussel to use when the mussel is the thing being looked at rather than the sauce. Half shell greenlips under garlic butter and breadcrumbs, run under a hot grill for three minutes, is one of the easiest impressive dishes there is.

We carry them both whole in the shell and as greenlip mussel meat. The meat is the shortcut for chowders, pies and fritters where you do not want to be picking through shells.

Buy them for: grilling, baking, half shell entertaining, mornay, anything where you want a substantial bite.

Spring Bay mussels

Tasmanian, and the premium option. Spring Bay mussels are grown in cold, clean water in Great Oyster Bay, and the difference shows in how plump they are relative to the shell. You get a higher meat yield and a cleaner, sweeter flavour.

They cost more, and they earn it when the mussels are the centrepiece rather than an ingredient. If you are cooking a pot of mussels for people who care about mussels, these are the ones.

Buy them for: a simple pot with wine, garlic and parsley where nothing is hiding the quality.

How to tell fresh mussels from tired ones

This is the part worth learning properly, because it removes the anxiety entirely.

Before cooking:

• Closed shells are alive. Most of the bag should be shut tight.
• Open shells get the tap test. Tap the shell firmly on the bench and wait a few seconds. A live mussel will draw itself closed. If it stays gaping, throw that one out.
• The shells should feel heavy and wet, not light and dry.
• The smell should be of clean sea water. Anything sour or ammoniated means the batch is past it.
• Cracked shells go in the bin. No exceptions.

After cooking:

• Any mussel still shut after cooking gets discarded. Do not force it open.

That is the whole system. Closed before, open after.

Storing them properly

Mussels are alive, and most mussel disasters are storage problems rather than buying problems.

• Get them into the coldest part of the fridge as soon as you are home, ideally 0 to 4°C.
• Put them in an open bowl and cover with a damp cloth or damp paper towel.
• Do not seal them in plastic. They need air and they will suffocate.
• Do not sit them in fresh water. Fresh water kills saltwater shellfish.
• Cook them the same day if you can, and within two days at the very outside.

If you are not going to get to them, cook them, pick the meat and freeze the meat in its own liquor. Do not freeze them raw in the shell.

Cleaning them, quickly

Most mussels now arrive largely cleaned, so this takes a couple of minutes.

1. Tip them into a colander and rinse under cold running water.
2. Scrub any shell with visible grit or barnacles.
3. Pull off any remaining beard, the wiry tuft at the hinge, by tugging it firmly towards the pointed end of the shell.
4. Do the tap test on anything sitting open.
5. Drain and cook.

Debeard right before cooking rather than in advance, because pulling the beard damages the mussel.

Cooking them without ruining them

The one rule: mussels are done the moment they open, and every extra minute after that shrinks them into rubber.

Get the pot properly hot with your aromatics and liquid already going. Tip the mussels in, put the lid on, and shake the pot rather than stirring. Start checking at three minutes. Pull them off the heat when most have opened, because the residual steam will finish the stragglers.

Serve them in the broth, with bread. The broth is half the dish.

Quantity Planning

Main course: 500 grams in the shell per adult. Starter or part of a spread: 250 to 300 grams per adult. Greenlip half shell entertaining: 6 to 8 shells per person.

A kilogram of black mussels is dinner for two with bread and nothing else. Because so much of the weight is shell, a bag always looks like more than it turns out to be.

Where to Source It

Tasman Star carries fresh black mussels, whole shell greenlips, greenlip mussel meat and Spring Bay mussels, kept cold and turned over daily so what you buy went into the tank recently rather than last week. Ask the team at Labrador or Varsity Lakes which came in that morning.

Find us at 5 to 7 Olsen Ave, Labrador or 20 Casua Dr, Varsity Lakes, open 7 AM to 6 PM, 7 days.

Browse fresh mussels and order online for Gold Coast delivery.