Midopilafo - Lemon rice with mussels
Mussels are a blessed and humble food as they are very economical and offer the body easily digestible proteins of high biological value with all the necessary amino acids. Here's an easy recipe from Mount Athos for aromatic midopilafo, which in Greece is one of the most traditional Lenten dishes. The phrase 'little goes well" perfectly fits this dish, as the choice of ingredients is very disciplined, highlighting the wise simplicity of the monastic kitchen. On Mount Athos, food like this is cooked in the traditional pan over a wood fire, but it will be just as tasty in any other utensil. You can use either fresh mussels from a bag or frozen for this monks recipe. In any case, the taste will surprise you.
If our mussels are fresh, we wash them and clean them very well by rubbing their shell with a brush and removing their whiskers.
If our mussels are frozen, the ideal is to let them thaw in the refrigerator and then rinse them very well in running water.
We wash and strain the rice and chop our onions so that we have them ready for the next step.
We put olive oil to burn in a wide pot and sauté the onions.
After a while we add the mussels to the pot and leave them for 1-2 minutes, we stirring slightly.
We remove the mussels with a slotted spoon and transfer them to another container because they should not be cooked for a long time.
At the same time, we add the rice to the pot and stir it 2-3 times so that it is well absorbed by the oil.
If any of the mussels have remained closed, we throw them away.
If we want our food to have both mussels in shell and mussel crumbs, then we remove the shells from half of the mussels.
We pour 5 cups of water into the pot, preferably hot and as soon as the food boils, we lower the heat and let it simmer.
Then, we add the dill, pepper and lightly salt.
When the rice is almost ready, we add the mussels to the pot, mix and leave the food on the fire for another 3 minutes with the lid covered.
We take the pot aside, cover it with a clean towel and close the lid.
When all the liquids have been saved, we add the lemon juice and a little extra fresh dill.
The midopilafo is ready to serve and is eaten hot.
We have to be careful when we salting because the mussels are already salty from the sea.
Frozen mussels need slightly less cooking time, so we add them to the rice 1 minute before removing the food from the heat.
In general, mussels don't need much cooking time because they gather and tighten.
