Il Cucinologo
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Paccheri with Potato Cream and Mussels

17/11/2023

I can provide you with a recipe to prepare delicious Paccheri with potato cream and mussels. This dish is a perfect encounter between land and sea, typical of Mediterranean cuisine.

Ingredients

  • 320 g paccheri
  • 400 g mussels
  • 2 medium potatoes
  • 1 garlic clove
  • Chopped parsley to taste
  • Extra virgin olive oil to taste
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 glass of white wine (to deglaze the mussels)

Preparation

  1. Start by cleaning the mussels well: remove the beards and rinse them under fresh running water. Once cleaned, place them in a pan with a garlic clove and let them open over high heat with the lid on. Use the white wine to deglaze them.
  2. Shell the mussels (leaving some with the shell for final decoration) and filter their cooking liquid through a fine-mesh strainer to remove any residues or sand. Set aside both the mussels and their filtered liquid.
  3. Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Boil them in lightly salted water until soft.
  4. Drain and blend them with a bit of cooking water until you get a smooth cream. If necessary, adjust salt and pepper.
  5. In a large pan, heat a drizzle of oil with a garlic clove, then add the potato cream and the mussel liquid. Cook over low heat for a few minutes to let the cream absorb the flavors.
  6. Meanwhile, cook the paccheri in plenty of salted water, drain al dente and transfer them to the pan with the potato cream.
  7. Add the shelled mussels to the pasta, gently mix to let them flavor and cook together for another minute or two.
  8. Serve the paccheri hot, decorating with some chopped parsley and the mussels you had left with the shell.

Curiosities

Paccheri are a pasta shape much loved in Neapolitan cuisine. They are large tubes of pasta that with their spaciousness lend themselves to being filled or accompanied with hearty sauces, as in this case a recipe that combines the sweet and earthy taste of potatoes with the sea flavor of mussels. It is a dish that can be found in many variants along the Italian coasts, where fish and seafood are everyday ingredients.

I hope this recipe inspires you and brings a taste of Italy directly to your home!