I can’t imagine living in Maine and not enjoying the magnificent shellfish which is available. Luckily most of my family is blest without shellfish allergies and also enjoys eating shellfish – okay mostly scallops, clams and lobster, but more often than not mussels.

Mussels are a very adaptive shellfish to enjoy. Most often mussels are served up steamed with drawn butter for dipping. But even better is to add a little white wine and lots of garlic to the water, creating a wonderful sauce for sopping.

However, or I should say luckily, fresh is not the only way to obtain mussels locally. Downeast Maine has several fine seafood smokehouses. Although smoked salmon is by far the favorite fish smoked, bought and served, smoked scallops and mussels are easily to be found as well.

As time can be very short on occasion, eating smoked mussels can be great and quick way to enjoy mussels. I read a wonderful recipe for a smoked mussel and potato salad in the cookbook “The New Irish Table” by Margaret M. Johnson and decided to adapt it to what I could get locally, tossing the ingredients in lovely vermouth vinaigrette.

After a quick stop at the Ellsworth Hannaford grocery store to purchase some Duck Trap Smoke Mussels (originally from the Belfast area) and some baby romaine, I headed home to make dinner in short order.

I boiled up some quartered potatoes, tossed them in my vinaigrette while still warm. After a couple of good tosses, I added the smoked mussels just to bring them to room temperature.  Washed and tossed the greens and arranged them on a plate, piled on the mussels and potatoes, added a few chopped chives and scallions and was good to go.

This proved to be a wonderful salad.

Lemon Vermouth Vinaigrette

4 T lemon juice

3 T dry vermouth

½ cup olive oil

2 teas mustard, Dijon works well

½ teas salt

¼ teas black pepper

2 cloves minced garlic

1 small shallot, peeled and chopped

Mussel Salad

1 tub of Duck Trap smoked mussels

10 ounces of romaine (used some baby romaine found at the market)

     Or you could use mixed greens

¾ pound of potato, cut into chunks about the size of the mussels

6 chopped scallions

4 T chopped chives

Boil the potato chunks to fork tender, drain and toss in half of the vinaigrette. After a few tosses, add the smoked mussels and toss again.

Wash and dry the romaine, toss in the remaining vinaigrette.

Compose the salad by placing greens on 4-6 plates; pile on some of the potato and mussel mixture. Sprinkle the chopped scallions and chives on top and serve.

I ate this with a thick slice of homemade bread before running out to an evening meeting. It would be a great starter or served up with soup and bread as a wonderful lunch.

Play around with the basic idea and enjoy some smoked mussels.

Slainte, Catherine.

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