Spring dishes, in addition to spring bamboo shoots, chestnuts, Malan head of these vegetables, river freshness should be counted snail and mussels. Many people only know "Qingming snail, more than the goose", but ignored the fat mussels. As a matter of fact, "March snails and April mussels". That's right, it's the right time to eat mussels.

Many people do not eat mussels, generally because in the first burn mussels left a "psychological shadow", good mussels, handling methods are not right, burn out will be fishy and old, old to bite can not bite. So, how to do mussels delicious? With this problem, I asked the executive chef of the Zhejiang Xizi Hotel, Zhu Qijin.

Zhu Qijin is a Chinese culinary master, who once designed and executed the difficult G2O Hangzhou Summit welcome dinner, and is even more familiar with home-cooked small dishes.

Master Zhu said that after the Qingming period, snails start to have seeds in their stomachs and their taste decreases significantly, which is when mussels pick up right where they left off and become a seasonal delicacy. Select mussels also have tips, not the bigger the better, too big mussels meat old, too small mussels have no meat, mussels part like a duck egg almost as big as the best.

The real eaters eat mussels will choose female, female mussels will taste much better than male mussels, male mussels narrow, the back end of the pointy, female mussels body thick, the back end of the more round, or more easy to distinguish.

Master Zhu's family lives in Xiaoshan, Xiaoshan waters also have mussels, so there are many mussels in Xiaoshan's home cooking. Fried mussels with spring leeks is an old-fashioned Xiaoshan dish. Spring leeks are bright green in color, with the most tender stems and leaves, and the aroma and taste are at their best. Fertile mussels plus fresh spring leeks stir-fried together, fried mussels golden and tender, leeks green, exudes a mouth-watering aroma, can be described as color and flavor, delicious and rice.

When the pumpkin is listed, you can do mussels fried pumpkin this dish, this with eat up especially fresh and refreshing. In addition to this refreshing approach, mussels stew is also very delicious, pickled dukkha is the old Hangzhou are loved by the classic spring dishes, after adding mussels, and spring bamboo shoots and salted pork stew, stewed until the soup color milky white, mussels crispy bamboo shoots tender, so that pickled dukkha immediately upgraded to become more perfect.

Chef Zhu says there's one important step in handling mussels that must be done, using the back of a cleaver or other hard object to repeatedly hit the side of the mussel meat, the axe-footed part of the mussel, which is harder and more solid. To knock the whole circle of thick sides are as loose as possible, knocking until the hands feel soft when pinched can be.

This step is crucial, and Chef Zhu suggests that foodies master this tip. Although mussel vendors will do it for you, if you're busy and not careful, you may not be able to knock the mussels into place, and the meat will be old and hard, a waste of a very good ingredient.