The best part of a steaming pot of mussels just might be the broth. Garlic-flecked, wine-drenched and suffused with salty brine, it can be so good that sometimes I’ll forget about the mussels themselves. Instead, I’ll focus on mopping up the entire pool of liquid with whatever is in reach — chunks of bread, French fries, even the empty mussel shells if a spoon is out of reach (besides, the shells are more fun).
This pasta with mussels, tomatoes and fried capers gives that heady broth a higher purpose, elevating it from the byproduct of a cooking technique to the very heart of a dish. All it takes is little simmering, a bit of butter and some ripe summer tomatoes.
First, though, you need some mussels. These days, most of the ones you’ll find have been farmed and de-bearded for you. All they’ll need is a rinse, and they are good to go.
If you are lucky enough to find wild mussels — that you either gathered yourself off some rocky coast or bought — give them a gentle scrub under cold running water with a soft brush, then use a paring knife to scrape off the beards. The closer you can do this to when you cook them, the better.
You’ll also need some ripe-to-bursting summer tomatoes. Juicy is key; that sweet tomato water is just as important as the mussel broth. The tomato juice mellows the salt. Any leaky heirlooms or beefsteaks on your counter that are too soft for salad work well here.
Cube them, then sauté them with red-pepper flakes and garlic until the cubes start to collapse, but don’t entirely melt. They should maintain some integrity.
Because mussels are soft and tomatoes even softer, I wanted to add some texture to the dish. So I fried a combination of bread crumbs and capers until golden and crisp. The bread crumbs become almost meaty, while the capers turned into crunchy, tangy shards, like pickle-flavored potato chips but better. They’re a perfect counterpoint to the sweetness of shellfish, tomatoes and butter.
Then it’s all tossed with al dente pasta while the sauce is still hot. This way, the pasta can absorb every last, glorious drop. It makes for a dining experience more elegant than slurping mussel broth out of a shell, and I think tastier, too.
