mussels steamed in bone broth with onion, garlic, and prosciutto, finished with herbs and lemon

Mussels intimidate a lot of home cooks before they've ever cooked one, which is a shame, because they are one of the fastest, most forgiving things you can make. The whole pot, start to finish, takes about 20 minutes, and the only real skill involved is knowing which ones to throw away: anything cracked, and anything that stays shut after you tap it. Once you've done it once, the fear mostly goes away.

Iron shows up in real amounts across a few pounds of mussels, the kind your body uses to move oxygen through your blood, worth naming on a protocol where fatigue so often rides along with everything else. You are steaming these because they are good, and the iron is simply part of what is in the bowl.

Scrub the mussels clean before they go in the pot, and let that handling be its own small acknowledgment of what came from the sea to feed you. Ladle them into wide bowls with plenty of the broth, scatter fresh herbs over the top, and set out lemon wedges so everyone can finish their bowl exactly how they like it.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 slices clean-label prosciutto, cut into bite-sized strips
• 1/2 cup bone broth, preferably homemade
• 3 to 4 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded as needed
• Fresh chives or parsley, chopped, for garnish
• Lemon wedges, for serving

Method

Scrub the mussels under cold water and pull off any beards. Discard any that are cracked or that stay open when you tap them. Set them aside.

Warm the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and prosciutto and cook another minute, until the garlic is fragrant and the prosciutto begins to crisp at the edges.

Pour in the bone broth and bring it to a simmer. Add the mussels, cover the pot tightly, and steam over medium-high heat until the shells open, about 5 to 7 minutes. Shake the pot once or twice to move them around. Discard any mussels that stay shut after cooking.

Spoon the mussels into wide bowls and pour the savory broth over them. Scatter with chives or parsley and serve with lemon wedges to squeeze on top.

*Adapted from gutsybynature.com*